Prepared Text of Archbishop Carlson's Address to the LCWR
From the Review, as is the above photo:Sr. Suzanne, I would like to thank you for your introduction. It has been a great pleasure to work with Sister Suzanne the past three years and I am grateful for her leadership at Cardinal Ritter Senior Services, especially our outreach to the elderly poor and those in need of housing.As Archbishop of St. Louis, I am fortunate to work with a large number of religious communities. These are dedicated individuals who minister and serve every day in this archdiocese. In addition to the traditional ministry of teaching and medical care, women and men in consecrated life work with the civic community and the business community in serving those in need no matter what the challenge.Religious are present to the poor at the St Patrick Center dealing with the homeless, in counseling the troubled, feeding the hungry, assisting the deaf, and working with St Vincent de Paul and Catholic charities — the list is endless.Some of my fondest and earliest memories relate to the education I received from the Sisters of St Joseph of Carondelet and the Dominican Sisters in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. For the past two years I have worked closely with representatives of CMSM, LCWR and CMSWR in my responsibility as Chairperson of the USCCB committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations.I realize this is a most important meeting for you and I pray that the dialogue between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and LCWR is not politicized but worked out within a community of faith. I assure you of my prayers and the prayers of everyone in the Archdiocese of St. Louis and I ask for the intercession of St Rose Philippine Duchene, a pioneering religious woman who opened the first school for young women west of the Mississippi in 1818.