A Connecticut native is on a crusade for the Catholic Church to make the lives of nuns in the United States better.
The Vatican has asked Mother Mary Clare Millea, a Derby native, to conduct an “Apostolic Visitation” to lead the investigation into the quality of lives in women’s religious institutions according to the New York Times.
Mother Clare became involved with the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, based in Hamden, back in the ‘60s. Ever since, she has been climbing the religious ladder. She is currently the head of her congregation and lives in Rome.
As a part of the investigation, she has interviewed more than 120 superior general of women’s orders, many of them in a formal sitting room at her order’s office in Hamden.
“I know that the object of this Visitation is to encourage and strengthen apostolic communities of women religious, for the simple reason that these communities are integral to the entire life of the Catholic Church, in the United States and beyond,” she said on her order’s website.
According to the Times, apostolic visitations have occurred in the past when a particular institution had gone seriously astray. Also, the Vatican ordered a visitation of American seminaries after the sexual-abuse scandal involving American priests.
Mother Clare told the Times that she hopes to complete the visitation by sometime in mid-2011 and present her finding to the Vatican.
