ARTICLES

Apostles' Mission

NAPA NATIVE REAWAKENS VALLEY

By Eric Reslock

When I sat down with Sister Susan Pieper at St. John the Baptist Church in Napa, I expected to find out pertinent details of her extraordinary life and apostolate: How a Napa native went on to become a non-cloistered nun and how she had the inspiration and the courage to take her unabashedly Catholic message to Italy's popular talk-show, Maurizio Costanzo. Sister Susan is founder and mother superior of a community of sisters in Rome who have dedicated their lives to saving souls. Sister Susan left California in 1980 and after studying for five years at a pontifical university in Rome for a license in moral theology, she began a community with five Italian women. Today, Sister Susan and the now 13 consecrated women do as the Apostles did: go out into the world to comfort, counsel, and preach Christ. The community was formally recognized in the Diocese of Rome in 1996 and named the Apostles of the Interior Life (Apostole della Vita Interiore). Sister Susan's current duty is to give spiritual guidance to seminarians in Rome.

Living in Rome brings special challenges. Less than ten percent of Italian Catholics go to Mass and anticlerical attitudes are prevalent -- especially in Rome. So much so that the women find it prudent to wear non-clerical clothes that have been donated to them instead of the traditional habit. Sister Susan and four other sisters arrived in California at the beginning of November after preaching a mission in Peoria, Illinois. The sisters came through California to preach weeklong missions at three churches. They arrived at St. John the Baptist in Napa for the last week in November. That is where I sat down with Sister Susan to discuss her apostolate on November 30th. Sister Susan looks much younger than she is (40ish), and she has an infectious laugh and a direct, open personality. When I apologized for being ignorant of her apostolate, she laughed and said, "How could you know about it since it doesn't exist outside of Italy." Her English is heavily accented from spending the last 19 years in Rome. She is a clear speaker but admits that she now thinks in Italian.

Sister Susan: Very few people know about us; it's a little bit more known in Italy because of God's providence and inasmuch as we've been invited on the biggest TV talk show in Italy eleven times. That was really great because millions of people watch that show every evening, it's the biggest thing in Italy. In fact, wherever we go people constantly stop us.

ER: They recognize you now?

SS: They do, and it's an occasion to do some ministry with them and speak to them. Last year we were invited on another show, which is called True Film [Format Filmbero in Italian] and what they do is select a celebrity, like an actor, politician or a model and make a short film about his or her life -- how they got where they are and so forth. On this show, they decided to do it on a nun and they selected one of our sisters because she was a nice looking young woman and she looks like a model, thin with long red hair -- and after the films, they had a talk segment where our sister sat down among the other people on the show that turned out very well, it was so beautiful. In fact, the national television had so many calls that they were obliged to run the show again on Easter and then again this year. We received many phone calls including the former prime minister of Italy called us twice.

ER: That's very courageous of you to put yourselves out there like that.

SS: Well, it's God that pushes you and it's He that wants this, because if you hear the things we say, the normal things everyone else says who wants to do evangelization does and says, but because He wants us in the limelight for His glory and to attract souls -- there's no other reason, I guess because there's no difference between us and the others.

ER: Let's go back to your time growing up in Napa. Did you go to Catholic school?

SS: No, I did when I was younger when my family was in Virginia, but when we came here, I went to Napa High School. Then I went to the College of Notre Dame in Belmont.

ER: Around this time, there was an Italian priest here at St. John the Baptist Church who was influencing you?

SS: Yes. Father Salvatore Scorza. When I met him for the first time, I was nineteen. I was coming home on the weekends so I kept up with my youth group and things like that at church. One of the young men in our youth group, Hans Rugent, who was a little older than me, he was 23, told me there was a new assistant pastor from Italy and said, 'why don't you go speak to him?' And I said, 'Why?' because I thought that people go to a priest only when they are down or depressed or have doubts. Out of curiosity I made an appointment with this priest, and it might have been in this room, 21 years ago. Let me just say that I walked into that a room a person, and I walked out another person. The talk with that priest changed my life completely.

ER: Had you seriously considered a vocation before you spoke to him?

SS: Yes, but only when I was a little girl, about 7 or 8. But you know when you are a teenager you forget about it. So, no, I wasn't even thinking about a vocation when I talked to him. It was like a lightning bolt had hit me like with St. Paul, just a conversion, right then and there. Not because this priest had charismatic gifts or something. No, he simply helped me think and reason about my life. He asked me the most fundamental question of life, and it is the question I ask people all the time, 'what is the goal of your existence, why are you living?' I had never thought about it because I was living a day-to-day existence and I seemed like I was fine. I asked him what the answer was and he told me to be a saint. That really shocked me. I had read the lives of the saints since I was a child but I never thought that I could become a saint and he said, 'you know, it's not me that tells you, it's Jesus that tells you over and over again.'

ER: That sanctity and holiness are really for everyone?

SS: Well, you know that St. John Bosco said that out of three young women or men, two out of the three have a vocation. But sanctity does not belong to the religious alone, we are all called to be saints. I wasn't thinking at all of a religious vocation after my conversation with Father Scorza. It was simply that I wanted to become a saint.

ER: What was the next step as far as inspiration along the way?

SS: Well, at the time I was planning on taking a degree in chemistry but after talking to that man -- he taught me how to pray and started me on daily meditations from the Imitation of Christ. He didn't tell me to go to Mass every day but I started to anyway. Father was surprised but he was even more surprised when Hans, the young man who was pushing me started going to Mass every day too. And after a short time, this young man who had a great job, had bought a house, told me, 'you know Susan, after prayer and reflecting and talking with Father, I've decided to become a priest.' I was stunned because I had never met a young man who wanted to become a priest. But I had no intention of becoming a nun. I was going to finish my degree, get married and have lots of kids.

ER: Were you a normal teenager, were you dating?

SS: Oh, yeah. I was dating, going out with guys, I played sports, basketball, swimming -- I was into all these kinds of things and groups. I went to Europe with my sister for a month and a half with a backpack.

ER: So you weren't exactly a sheltered girl who chose the religious life by default.

SS: No, because I had so many things going on, but when Hans told me he was going to become a priest, that was the trigger that caused a crisis in me because I hoped that [a religious life] is not what He had in store for me too. This crisis grew until it reached its highest point in 1980 and I remember I was in the chapel at Notre Dame and I broke down and cried because I realized what God wanted from me. I couldn't take it any more; I gave up and surrendered to God. I cried because I knew what I was leaving -- I left a lot. But the moment I said, O.K. Lord I surrender to you, the storm was over and I felt a peace and joy I had never felt before. I was happy before, but this is another kind of happiness. That's when I called my spiritual director and told him that I wanted to become a nun. Father Scorza advised me to pray and also talked to me about forming a new community. When I asked him how many belonged to this community he replied that there was no one else and that I would be the first. There was no house, no money, and only divine providence. If God wants this, he'll get this enterprise off the ground. When I said 'yes', I realized that I had to say good-bye to my country, my family, and all my friends. But I never doubted that it was the right thing for me to do.

ER: What were some of your other inspirations during this time.

SS: Many things, but I always tell people it's an aspect of love. When you fall in love with a person, you want to communicate all that you are and all that you feel to that person. And you don't want to do this with another person. In some ways love is exclusive -- it's for that person. So I wanted to be entirely for God, and consequently, for my brothers and sisters.

ER: Does this idea of exclusive love compel you to be supportive of the discipline of priestly celibacy?

SS: Yes, absolutely. Without a doubt. I understand why the Church has wanted this down through the centuries. In the beginning it wasn't that way, but with the practice and experience, the Church realized that this is the best thing. And practically speaking it must be that way because with celibate, unattached lives, you are free to go anywhere. It's not fair for your family to have to share you with God. That's what pushes me on is the idea to love God exclusively so that I may love others with an undivided heart.

ER: Let's turn to Italy again. I understand that things are not well for the Church there. Any changes?

SS: Yes, for the worse. I recently learned that Italy now has the lowest birth rate in the world.

ER: To what is this breakdown attributed? Is there experience similar to the Church in America?

SS: Can I tell you something? I've been away for 19 years and after doing parish mission in America in these last two years, there is no doubt that the Church in America is improving very much.

ER: There are many traditionalists who believe that the last 30 years have been a disaster and that things are constantly getting worse all the time. There are also some who think we've turned a corner in America.

SS: The Church is doing much better here. And I especially see it in the lay people. There are so many who are in love with the Church, the Eucharist and other devotions in this country. The lay people are hungry more than ever. In Italy, the problem is another one. They are perhaps 15 years behind America. So what America was going through 15 to 20 years ago, that is what is happening in Italy now. It's a disaster. In fact, there are very few new religious vocations, especially with women. A few years ago, in 1996, at a private Mass in the Vatican, John Paul II examined one of our brochures that I had brought along and he asked me, 'Are these all consecrated women?' He couldn't believe that we have so many young women who have taken vows.

ER: How do you decide where to go on a mission and what do you do?

SS: In America we give parish missions. Usually a parish priest invites us to come and we start after the late Mass on Saturdays and finish the mission the following Sunday. We give talks to groups and in meetings individually. We want to awaken or reawaken in people a love of Christ and their knowledge of the faith. We also visit Catholic schools in the area. We counsel people of every age about their doubts, questions and their spiritual journey in general. We also ask the priest to have the Blessed Sacrament exposed for people who want to come and pray.

ER: Last question: in a place where there are so many marks of a strong Catholic culture, especially in San Francisco -- beautiful cathedrals, schools, churches -- do you find it all ironic to be doing a mission in such a place?

SS: California is mission country. America is mission country. Wherever we go, people say, 'we are dying spiritually.' There are too few to give the water that Christ talked about. People desperately want to be led into holier lives.

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