WORDS Michael McVeigh

Women have always been among the movers and shakers in the Australian Church. Pioneering religious sisters helped establish schools and social ministries, and gave the Church its authentic character. Lay women have dedicated their lives to carrying out the Church’s mission, and more broadly helped create a more just and tolerant nation. More often than not, though, senior leadership roles have been occupied by men.

In recent years, a new generation of women have taken on leadership roles in the Church and in Catholic ministries, bringing new insights and perspectives. In this special feature, we interview three women who have answered the call to be leaders in our Church.

One of them is Sister Clare Condon, head of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, who says the roles women are taking on today will lead to more opportunities women in the future.

One of the sources of inspiration for the new Catholic Religious Australia President, Sister Clare Condon, is pioneering Catholic Sister Mary MacKillop.

‘She had her problems with the Church and suffered and struggled as a consequence. But she saw the need for education, in particular in the rural communities, and was determined and set about doing something about it’, says Sr Clare. ‘I think she’s a great role model for young women today.’

Sr Clare is one of a number of women taking on greater leadership roles within the Catholic Church in Australia. Beginning as a principal of a Catholic primary school in her twenties, Sr Clare has graduated into various leadership roles within her congregation and in the broader Catholic community.

She has been the Congregational Leader for the Sisters of the Good Samaritan in Australia since 2005. In June, she was elected President of Catholic Religious Australia, the coordinating body for religious congregations across the country. Most notably, Sr Clare was Chancellor for the Archdiocese of Adelaide from 2001 to 2005, a role encompassing pastoral planning, financial management, child protection and various leadership roles across the diocese.

Sr Clare’s experience in Adelaide highlighted how women, both religious and lay women, are now being invited into roles previously only open to ordained clergy. She says the challenge for Church authorities is to work out when ordination should be a criteria for a role, and when roles should be opened up to others.

‘I think the role of Chancellor and the role of financial administrator in the diocese are probably two roles that women can currently do, and are accepted into, but there wouldn’t be too many dioceses where that is happening at this stage’, says Sr Clare.

The last few decades have seen significant changes in the roles women are occupying in Australian society, and the Church has also taken steps to involve women in new ways.

For some women, change has not occurred fast enough. When bishops and priests take centre stage at major Catholic celebrations, some think that the church still looks like a ‘boys’ club’. However, that perception doesn’t hold in the broader Catholic community, where women hold key positions in the education sector, are CEOs of Catholic ministries and hospitals, and sit as chairs of boards and on various governing bodies.

‘I’m a strong believer that people can only create change from within, not from without’, says Sr Clare. ‘So I think the steps that women in leadership now take will lead to other opportunities for leadership in the future.’

While wary of making generalisations about how women and  men approach leadership, Sr Clare says the female leaders she has encountered tend to favour working more collaboratively.

‘From my experience, they seek to get some kind of consensus before decision-making’, she says. ‘I think women can make the hard and difficult decisions. They might sometimes take longer to do that. But they tend to bring people along with them.’

Sr Clare says her experiences in the Church and in her own congregation have given her a broader perspective on life, on church, and on the needs of society. She says religious congregations are going through a period of transition.

‘We’re coming out of a period that’s probably in some respects abnormal for religious life to have had so many members and to be of service to the Church in the way that religious have in Australia over the past hundred years’, she says.

Where once religious congregations carried the education, health and welfare sectors, these roles are being turned over to lay people.

‘I look at my own congregation. We still operate ten schools in Australia and one in Japan, and most of the key people in all of those schools are lay people’, she says. ‘They’re committed and they understand our charism. I think the formation processes that have taken place for the last twenty years have really equipped lay people to go forward now in their own right.’

The role of religious needs to be on the ‘cutting edge’, she says.

‘My congregation started with five good women. I believe that the church needs religious life, and I think people will always respond. Perhaps not in the great numbers as we’ve seen in Australia over the last hundred plus years, but people will pick up a charism and run with it.

‘I don’t think numbers is the name of the game. Small numbers don’t worry me. It’s our authenticity in living our lives according to the gospel that’s important.’

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