New Faces, New Possibilities Cultural Diversity and Structural Change in Institutes of Women Religious

This book offers a comprehensive and insightful contribution to understanding transformations experienced in the institutes of consecrated life in the United States and globally. It is unique in that most of the chapters articulate the realities of aging members and the cultural and ethnic diversity of the emerging religious institutes. The book documents thoughtful reflections, learnings, and innovative ways religious institutes are reimaging new structures for mission and charism, including discernment processes and new governance and collaborative models. This book invites us into the emerging creative field of research on consecrated life. Regardless of the challenges facing religious life today, this book affirms the core tenet of consecrated women's fidelity to God and pragmatic listening to contemporary challenges as an opportunity to learn and respond to new realities with new possibilities, hope, wisdom, and grace.

For those seeking to understand contemporary religious life for women, this book sheds light on a complex picture.

This book has the potential to enlighten, encourage, and support what is already going on and what is emerging in women's religious life in this country. It is hoped that this book will be widely read, studied, discussed, and its implications implemented not only by current leaders but by the rank and file who will live through what is emerging, and that the material it provides will facilitate the transformation that is required if religious life is to find its footing in a new sociocultural religious setting.