Poor Clare Nuns
Christ the King Monastery
You may be wondering how we ran things as a group of religious, cloistered nuns. Pretty simple, I guess. We had a group of leaders, an abbess, vicaress, and a discrete, another name for council member. All are elected by the community, and we were all governed by this group who in turn were governed by our Order's Constitution, plus Canon Law of the Church. Supposedly the council ran the show after conferring with the rank and file at our frequent community meetings. The meetings would have been the time to discuss our problems and our general finances, but that isn't exactly how it was...
Our money was controlled completely by the Bursar, who for many years was also our Abbess as well as corporate President.
Organization
Although contrary to state corporation law as well as our own constitution, one person could not be both President and Treasurer, ie, Bursar. Maybe this was not allowed, but then again, some believed that laws are for 'the others', not 'me', so it ended up a real one nun show with the abbess/bursar/corp. prez. all the same, very powerful individual. It's funny, but, although this was widely known, no one ever questioned us about it. Complicity?
As for our 'frequent' community meetings, they stopped a long time ago. Easier that way. A, the 'one in charge' didn't have to deal with community objections to her plans and ideas, B, no meetings scheduled means don't need an agenda posted where the community could be prepared for informed discussions, C, no meetings means the 'one in charge' won't have to waste her valuable time in preparation. But no regular meetings was against our Constitution, but no regular meetings also meant that we never had to waste time reading, discussing and understanding our Constitution, like it says in our Constitution. No meetings ultimately meant that the 'one in charge' could just do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and never had to explain herself.
Sure, there were adhoc 'meetings' right after prayers, but it was more a rapid-fire monolog than any discussion or sharing of ideas. If at a proper meeting, someone would speak up or ask a question, they'd be slammed down.
There's more to tell, so, as they say, STAY TUNED! Click Next Pg to read more.