The institute of Mater Dei in old Goa is a hotbed of feminist theology and one of South Asia’s foremost centers of graduate education for religious women.

The institute, which is housed in St. Monica’s, a 450-year-old former Augustinian cloistered convent, functions under the Pontifical Institute of Philosophy and Religion, Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune.

Mater Dei is the bold statement by the women’s section of the Conference of Religious India, reports National Catholic Reporter.

The institute is an assertion that not only priests and brothers should undertake advanced studies in theology, philosophy and leadership, but that nuns, who outnumber male religious 4-to-1 in this nation, not only can but will forge a new role for women, both lay and religious.

The young sisters who attend classes here are encouraged — even prodded — to speak up forcefully and act boldly to not only to serve God’s people in their various ministries, but to redress India’s endemic male-dominated culture, both in secular society and the church itself.

The sisters, in their late 20s and 30s, are being taught not to serve as handmaids to priests or “decorators,” a role one religious leader in India warned them they must cast off.

“The Second Vatican Council challenged the Religious to enter into a dialogue with the postmodern, globalized world,” the institute’s informational booklet reads.

“The radical interpretation of religious life demands from us entirely new and courageous initiatives,” it says.

The institute also has a yearlong curriculum for future formation directors, which has 31 sisters. Another curriculum in philosophy, with 17 sisters, has classes ranging from “Hunger and Violence,” to the history of philosophy, ancient to the present.

“We have a lot of practical knowledge, but with the founding of the Mater Dei Academy we will employ good scholarship, concentrating specifically on women, all aspects of their lives, culture and heritage. We will create an online journal so that we can quickly disseminate what we learn,” says Institute’s director Ursuline Sister Jyoti Fernandes.

Source: Liberating nuns of India (ncronline.org)

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