The rhythm of life in a Roman Catholic monastery has not changed much since the Middle Ages, although clocks have made it more precise. Every morning the sisters of the Green Mountain Monastery in Greensboro wake at 6:30 and walk to the yurt that serves as their chapel to say their morning prayers.
On Thursday, that rhythm gained an extra beat. The four residents of the monastery, including three sisters, woke early to make sure they could read Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change and the environment at the very moment it was released. That was noon, Vatican time and 6 AM in Vermont. Because this was a 21st century encyclical, it was posted to the Vatican’s website and the sisters read it on their iPads. Sister Bernadette Bostwick printed out a copy, because she likes to highlight the texts she studies.
“Sister Gail was leaving for Chicago at 7:30, but she kept reading, instead of preparing for her trip,” Bostwick said.
Although at 72 pages, not including footnotes, the encyclical is not light reading, Bostwick had read it twice by the time the lunch dishes had been put away. “I was so excited that I kept jumping out of my seat,” she said. “I have been waiting for this my whole life, or at least for the last 30 years.”
Pope Francis’s encyclical generated rising anticipation in environmentalists and Catholics around the world before its release on June 18. It was even leaked, as if it were a television series finale. But there are likely few places on Earth where this encyclical was more eagerly awaited than at the Green Mountain Monastery.
Women religious (they don’t call themselves “nuns”) have long served God by caring for others. Nurturing orphans. Teaching children. Comforting the sick and the dying. In 1993, a cultural historian, theologian and priest in the Catholic Passionist Order known as Thomas Berry called on the leaders of women religious orders to add caring for the environment to that list, Bostwick said. Berry was well-known enough for The New York Times and The Washington Post to write obituaries when he died in 2009.
“He said, ‘How can we baptize children with toxic water, then teach them about God?” Bostwick said. “That shaped me.” She had started on the path to become a woman religious after raising a family of four children.
Other women religious answered Berry’s call, but stayed with their communities. Sister Gail Worcelo and Bostwick, who were already at a Passionist monastery in Pennsylvania, joined Berry in founding a new community dedicated to caring for the environment.
The two women arrived in Vermont in 1999, first staying at the Weston Priory, then elsewhere before they bought the property in the Northeast Kingdom town of Greensboro in 2005. They transformed a farmhouse and barn on the property into a monastery and retreat center. Sister Amie Hendani, who is from Indonesia, became a full member of the community in 2012.
In jeans and sandals, complaining about GMOs and Disney princesses, Bostwick could be just about any woman strolling the aisles of the Buffalo Mountain Food Co-op in nearby Hardwick, but few Vermonters observe a period of silence each evening.
At the monastery, Bostwick said, the women strive to live an environmentally conscious life. “We try to set an example.” They grow 80 percent of their own food, heat with wood and supply their electricity needs with solar panels on the south-facing roof of the main building.
Still, Bostwick said, they face the same imperfect choices as other environmentally-conscious Vermonters. They are still tied to the electric grid, because they felt the batteries needed to back up their solar panels were too toxic. In winter, when they need to choose between a chicken raised on the farm down the road and kale flown in from California, they’ve decided the chicken was the better choice.
And they do their best to plant trees to offset the carbon generated by their extensive travel around the country and the world to give talks and workshops on their ministry.
Across the country, 600 women religious and laywomen live following the teachings of Thomas Berry, Bostwick said. They run farms in both rural and urban areas. But she is not surprised that this work is not known. “The mysticism of the Catholic Church is so rich and so deep, but in many ways it is its best kept secret.”
It’s not that Berry’s teachings are not accepted in the Church. “I can’t think of a women religious order around the world that hasn’t had us come to speak about our work or Thomas’s work,” Bostwick said.
Yet, until Thursday, solar panels and eating local were not generally considered part of Catholic spirituality. In pained Bostwick to read that the president of the Catholic League, a lay or non-clerical group, had dismissed the encyclical. Bostwick said that she suspects some members of her own family have thought she was crazy for her dedication to the environment.
That’s why she counts Thursday’s papal encyclical as one of the most exciting events of her life. She fidgeted in a blue folding chair in a screened gazebo, just feet away from Berry’s grave on the monastery grounds, while talking about it.
“This is like a dream come true. That the Church that I love, the tradition that I love with all my heart, also understands where I’m coming from,” she said. “If I were to die tomorrow, I would say we were on the right track. I don’t want to die any time soon, because I want to see everything come to pass, but I could die in peace.”
The extra beats added by the encyclical to the rhythm of her day on Thursday included several media interviews, including one with a Boston radio station.
The community’s celebration of the encyclical will wait. Bostwick says, “When Sister Gail gets back from Chicago on Monday, we will probably celebrate in true Catholic spirit, with a small bottle of wine.”
