"The None Story"

IN THE 2016 Catholic Directory the SFCC is STILL posted.  Mary Jo Tully, as chancellor, was in charge of the religious communities of women.  We will see if her departure helped correct this direct  attack on the Roman Catholic Church.

As of March 2015 the  Sisters for Christian Community SFCC, is still in the Catholic Directory for the Archdiocese of Portland.  "Sisters" that belong to an Order that HAS canonical approval could very easily identify themselves as with that order and not SFCC.  They are not approved by Rome and could lead some well-meaning Catholics away from True church teachings.

Their website says in part: "By 1995 SFCC defined itself as a "prophetic-ecclesial community" driven to "speak the truth of love and grow in the maturity of Christ"      (Eph 4:15). SFCC continued to understand itself to be a community of consecrated women who are self-determining, self-regulating and self-governing and hold a common goal: that all may be one-the Christ prayer for unity and collegiality. To SFCC it is clear that only the Christ-prayer of unity makes all independence and collegiality possible and productive. Thus it is this Gospel prayer that forms the heart of the SFCC common spirituality, while it challenges each SFCC to take the uncomfortable risk of being prophet in her home town. Founded originally to concern itself with the restructuring of a hierarchical institutional Church, SFCC moved progressively toward what it came to understand as a "ministry of presence."
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When Archbishop Vlazny was appointed our spiritual leader, along came a group of women approved by him. This group is called the Sisters For Christian Community. We have many in working in our Archdiocese.  FYI - Archdiocese of Portland phone number 503-234-5334 - Office of Religious Communities - Mary Jo Tully , Chancellor mtully@archdpdx.org (See below for names.)

"Sr." Joan Chittister in Spiritual Final Round

They are non canonical, meaning they are NOT approved by Rome.

Non-Canonical–adjective

1.  Not included within a canon or group of rules.

2.  Not belonging to the canon of Scripture.

It doesn't take long to see their negative feelings on the Vatican.

If we go deeper we see "women's rights" which addresses agreeing with the acceptance of abortion and women priests.

We have four "women priests" in Oregon sending the wrong message. Nice friendly ladies, working in some capacity for the Catholic church here, but leading people astray aka hell.

"Sisters for Christian Community" Started in Oregon on advent of Archbishop Vlazney's Term

SFCC Members From the 2009 Oregon Catholic Directory: 

Brandt, Judith, SFCC

Devlaeminck, Bernadetta, SFCC

Fouquette, Virginia, SFCC

Frolick, Jeanne, SFCC, OCP Music Contributor

Frolick , Patricia, SFCC

Kelley, Elaine, SFCC

Kitching, Mary Lou, SFCC

Kopp, Lillianna, SFCC   Friend of the Archdiocese who started this non-canonical order.

Manuel, Honora, SFCC

Mintonye, Sara, SFCC

Oakley, Diana, SFCC

Trager, Suzanne, SFCC

Trtek, Catherine, SFCC

 The New Nuns - Time Magazine 1972
In part below - full text above.

'The most radical of the new nuns have abandoned their orders to form "noncanonical" experimental communities outside the reach of church authority. But they do not consider themselves "ex-nuns."

A free-form, geographically dispersed group (32 states, Canada and England) called Sisters for a Christian Community (S.F.C.C.) was founded in 1970 to "experiment and pioneer new forms of religious life for the 21st century."

Essential to the undertaking, says Founding Sister Lillanna Kopp of Portland, Ore., is the elimination of the bureaucratic, authoritarian structures that have driven American nuns out of traditional religious orders by the tens of thousands since the Vatican Council closed in 1965.

Since that year, the number of U.S. nuns has dropped from 180-000 to 150,000—far more than can be accounted for by normal attrition. "We must be a pilgrim people on the road, unencumbered by luggage," says Sister Kopp, a sociologist and author, who left her order in 1969.

"Marble mother houses are what destroyed the old orders."


GREAT NEWS!! The Vatican is conducting an Apostolic Visitation of Religious Communities. It may be that SFCC is off their radar screen because it is non canonical. But we can make sure that if we're being led astray by the Archdpdx they will know.

Sister Kirsten Foley, FSE 203-287-5467
or write to her at: Apostolic Visitation Office, PO Box 4328, Hamden, Conn. 0651-9998
*It's hard to put into words how much our truly Christ lead priests and nuns (sisters) mean to us.

Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1