Communities of nuns and sisters in the U.S. are weathering a season of demographic decline with far-reaching consequences for the country’s vast network of Catholic schools, hospitals and social services.
But as Catholic leaders try to convince more young women like Graus to dedicate their lives to the church, recent surveys suggest that a big obstacle may lie surprisingly close to home.
More than half of the women who professed final vows to join a religious order in 2010 said a parent or family member had discouraged their religious calling, according to a survey conducted by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
What this article fails to address is that there is a very clear divide among women religious in the United States. Approximately 80% of women religious belong to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. The leadership of this organization is primarily dissident nuns. These are the sisters who gave up the habit and have adopted feminism. They speak out in favor of women’s ordination and homosexual marriage. They practice New Age rituals. They are mired in the 1960’s and 70’s. The orders belonging to this organization are slowly dying. In contrast, 80% of new sisters are joining the 20% who belong to the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. These are dynamic young congregations. These orders are growing rapidly. Take a look at the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, the Nashville Dominicans, and the Sisters of Life, to name a few. These sisters tend to wear a habit and are faithful to Church teachings. They embrace Christ and commit their lives to His service. Their numbers may seem small now, but as those who have focused on this world dwindle those who have kept their focus on Christ will multiply. When women religious once again exude holiness, parents will once again embrace the idea of their daughter joining their ranks.
The other problem is that unlike priests, there really isn’t a lot that a religious sister can do that a lay Catholic women cannot do as well or better. Lay catholics are nurses, catechists and teachers (the primary mission of nuns previously). They can also be physicians, lawyers, mothers, and wives and can come and go as they choose.
Only a male religious can function as a priest, but anybody can take on the traditional activities of a nun. Further, because of the demographic decline, most new nuns are largely placed in the role of care giver to aging nuns, or of income producer. If a nun who does not have obvious high income generating skills wishes to work in prison ministry, or as a missionary they may not be permitted to, as the needs of their religious superiors will take precedence over any particular vocation they might feel called to. This results in their having most of the downside of lay life, with little of the upside.
I cannot recommend such a life to my children (both young women aged 13 and 20). They will lead fuller lives as layfolk, and are likely to do more good. I think that religious orders will simply need to change, such that they are based in the laity, extending out to the world (sort of like “third orders” now) rather than based in the cloister.
There is very good reason for families to be reticent. My oldest sister is a nun and it is hard on the family. My parents were constantly fretting and arguing about the relationships. We had very little in common with her anymore and it was difficult to retain closeness and a sense of family — the other sisters became her family and it was to them that her time, efforts and loyalties went. That is understandable in theory; in practice, it’s difficult.
My parents felt like they were short-changing her and diminishing her role in the family because they couldn’t give her money or buy her anything outside of clothing and personal effects. Anything else had to be turned over to the convent. They really fretted about their will. My father didn’t want to leave a third of his estate to the church, and that’s exactly what would happen to whatever she was bequeathed. They wanted HER to get something but it was impossible. And leaving a large sum of money to the church while knowing that their other children could have used that money was difficult. We didn’t mind but my father felt terrible about it.
Picking up on DJH’s theme, we found it difficult to understand what exactly the sisters did that was unique to them, besides live in community. The sisters work as teachers, social workers, nurses, even lawyers, live in rented homes, wear regular clothing, and attend church like the rest of us. There is nothing remarkable about them that differs greatly from what lay women do, particularly single lay women.
A childhood friend of mine who was very devout felt that she had a calling so she went to visit convents and spoke with the formation sisters. She came away from the experience rather jaded. They asked little about her spiritual life — most of the discussion focused on whether she would earn a degree before entering and the importance of having a career that had good earning potential. She was rejected because she had no desire to attend college and simply wanted to live a life of prayer and service. From what I hear, this is typical of many communities and they do require that applicants have degrees or are close to completing college before entering.
So, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that the traditional orders are attracting applicants and the modernized ones are not.
Ahh, Clueless, you are correct yet so far from the truth. If, in fact, a young woman wanted to be a doctor. lawyer, mother, etc. of course,she might better not become a nun.
As a priest who visits the Convent several time each month let me suggest that the vocation of professed religious is rather something else:
The nun is a woman who can live fully in the world without being part of it. The traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are not only radical in the twenty-first century, they often lead to a holy simplicity and peace as well. In an article in the Living Church many years ago, the founder of the Order of the Holy Cross pointed out that monks and nuns are called “religious” not because they are religious while the rest of us are not but, rather, because while those of us in the world can be excellent doctors, lawyers, etc without being the least bit religious, only monks and nuns have religion as their sole vocation. A monk or a nun who is not religious is not a monk or a nun.
So, what can a nun do that a woman in the world can not do? She can devote her entire life, her whole being to the practice of religion without the encumbrances of the demands of the world. The desire to do that should be, it seems to me, the only desire that leads a young woman to knock on the cloister door seeking admission.
One must distinguish between a vocation and an occupation. I was called by God to the vocation of marrige. My occupation is that of physician. My occupation must fit within my vocation. My marriage is my primary vehicle of service to God. It is the same for consecrated religious. They are called by God to a religious vocation and devote their entire lives to the service to God and the Church as consecrated religious. Within that service they may be doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, etc. Those occupations are secondary to their true vocation.
The personal anecdotes here are confusing as they don’t provide any context as to the types of orders being investigated and joined; it’s important to distinguish between those sisters who chose to enter the cloister and those who chose not to enter, as the lives of the two states are very different.
The personal anecdotes rather emphasise the main point of the article and confirm the suspicions….
There IS something un-natural about religious life. But as a wise monk said to me -this is intentional. Quite simply surrendering worldy goods and living a life of prayer ONLY makes sense in the context of God and that, in and of itself, is a witness.
“They asked little about her spiritual life—most of the discussion focused on whether she would earn a degree before entering and the importance of having a career that had good earning potential. She was rejected because she had no desire to attend college and simply wanted to live a life of prayer and service. From what I hear, this is typical of many communities and they do require that applicants have degrees or are close to completing college before entering.’
Well frankly, as a parent I am grateful that they bring this up. In my diocese 3 priests have been kicked out (in their 30s-50s) for unspecified offences (apparently noncriminal, had nothing to do with children or minors. Scuttlebutt hath it that all had to do with having a relationship with a single adult women)
So you have a (in this case man) who has spent every day since age 17 in the service of the church. Has a seminary degree WHICH IS NOT WORTH SPIT on the open market. Has never held a real job, does not know how to have relationships, and has no assets, and has been estranged from their families for 20 years, and now you kick them out. They have no job, no home, no health care, no prospects, and no christian community. They cannot defend themselves. They have no access to legal counsel. They are ENTIRELY at the mercy of their bishops.
D*MN RIGHT I’d want my kids to “earn a degree before entering” and to have a “career that had good earning potential”. And that is if they were NUTS enough too eventually enter.
#7, I understand. DJH in the first comment made an excellent distinction between orders that are thriving and orders that are not. I invite Teatime2 to talk some more given the distinctions that need to be made to understand an order’s mentality.
My point in response to #2 is that ‘nuns’ are not just those sisters who join a religious community, but otherwise function out in the world. In fact, the very term ‘nun’ properly refers to those sisters who enter the cloister for a life mostly of communal prayer.
“Quite simply surrendering worldy goods and living a life of prayer ONLY makes sense in the context of God and that, in and of itself, is a witness.”
As three priests (in less than 3 years) in my diocese have found out, surrendering worldly goods to the church may not be as “safe” as surrendering worldly goods to God. One is trustworthy, and full of forgiveness. The other is an all too human institution.
If the Catholic church needs free labor in her schools, it should encourage retired layfolk to “spend a year in service to your church”. There are plenty of smart 65-70 year old men and women who have had responsible jobs, and could easily and gladly teach biology, physics, calculus, english, spanish etc in their retirement. It would be good for them, and would be play after a lifetime of 80 hour weeks. Instead, these individuals are actively discouraged from any teaching or serious ministry through the church. (Volunteering at the food bank, or ushering on Sundays is all the church wants her laity to do).
The church would rather see their schools go out of business, then have the school bureacracy shaken up with free, highly educated labor.
Similarly, if the church needs folks to preside at Mass, all they need do is to have a single priest (the bishop for crying out loud) preconsecrate the elements and have the deacons (who already do baptisms, weddings, funerals, sermons, counseling, prison ministry etc) preside at Mass. Again for free. There would be NO theological problem, all deacons are male, and they (and layfolk) already schlep preconsecrated hosts to shut ins.
The reason that none of this happens is that this free labor (which is taken for granted in the Protestant churches) would greatly decrease the power of the bishop and the church bureacrats.
So I do not see that the shortage of priests and nuns is a problem of the laity, which should be solved by sacrificing their sons and daughters on the alter of clerical/bureacratic power. The shortage is a problem that the church should solve, by humbly partnering with the laity. But alas, that would “ONLY makes sense in the context of God and that, in and of itself, is a witness.”
Clueless,
I don’t mean to speak harshly, but you really are clueless about the mass when you say that “a single priest could pre-consecrate the elements and then have the deacons preside at mass.” That wouldn’t be mass! It seems that you think mass is a gathering where we hear Bible readings, sing hymns, and receive communion, which just happens usually to be consecrated at that time. In fact, mass, or the divine liturgy, is the making present of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, with all the grace which flows from that, in the present moment. The mass is the reason why Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is not something which happened long ago and far away, but something which is present to us now. And the obligation of Catholics is not “to go to church on Sunday” or “to receive communion on Sunday” but to “assist at mass on Sunday.”
This means that in their hearts and minds they join themselves to the action of the priest in offering the eucharistic sacrifice. They confess their sins, and then stand as it were at the foot of the cross, accept what Christ has done for them and open themselves to His grace. This can happen even if a person does not receive communion at that mass. It is the whole action of the mass, the consecration, the fraction, the elevation, and its spiritual meaning which is important, not just receiving the host.
Your suggestion that retired folks might teach in Catholic schools sounds like a good one. But the rest of what you say seems driven by some personal animus. And I don’t know what you mean by the three priests in your diocese either. Actually, diocesan priests, unlike priests who belong to religious orders, don’t surrender their worldy goods to the church, and can own property. I am aware of priests who have inherited houses, vacation cottages, etc. In any case you don’t make clear what you mean. The bishop transferred them somewhere they didn’t like? There were accusations against them and they were suspended? This is a very sad fact of current times in the church, that some good priests are being hurt by the evil that other priests have done, and it is hard for anyone to tell the difference up front when an accusation is made. But this doesn’t make the priest’s life meaningless you know. He can offer up his suffering, united with the suffering of Christ, and it can be spiritually fruitful. And he will still be able to offer mass in private. Imagine the spiritual fruit of such a priest praying for his false accusers.
Nobody sacrifices their sons and daughters. Some sons and daughters answer a call from God, and it is their decision, not their parents. If a person is called to live as a contemplative nun or monk, for instance, really all the considerations you adduce are quite besides the point.
Susan Peterson