Nuns Today​—What About Tomorrow?

THE troubles of the Catholic Church are perhaps nowhere more apparent than among its nuns. These are leaving their religious orders in startling numbers. And discontent among those that remain is increasing.

Newspaper article-headings reflect the crisis, such as the following: “9,000 NUNS QUIT IN U.S. LAST YEAR.”a¹ “NUNNERY WITHOUT NUNS.”b² “NUNS IN MIDST OF FEMALE REBELLION.”c³ “VANISHING NUNS: CRISIS AT SCHOOLS.”d⁴ “SHORTAGE OF NUNS FORCES CATHOLIC HOSPITAL TO CLOSE.”e⁵

Recently Franciscan nun Mary Modde worked on a major study that included about 70 percent of the nuns in the United States. She wrote that the study was made to “prove or disprove” the public belief that the question, “Where have all the sisters gone?” had changed to the declaration, “ALL the sisters HAVE gone.”

Is the situation as serious as indicated? Is the survival of the Church’s religious orders really in danger?

Some Catholic authorities seem to think so. Anita Caspary, a former mother general, said that unless changes are made in the religious orders the Church “stands to lose the whole [nun] community.”

Also, Gabriel Moran, as president of the Christian Brothers, Long Island​—New England district, wrote: “One of the tragedies of recent Roman Catholic history has been the dissolution of religious orders. . . . there are tens of thousands of people who are treading water in collapsed organizations.” Moran concluded: “The overall picture is a depressing one and this is the reason why the picture is almost never candidly drawn.”

How Great the Exodus?

Reliable departure statistics are hard to come by. And yet Catholic sources give an idea of the extent of the decline. For example, they show that there were 1,201,159 nuns world wide in 1965, but only 879,939 in 1971​—a loss of 321,220 nuns in just six years! In some areas the decline has been particularly great. South America, for instance, experienced a 40-percent decrease in one recent year, from 87,593 nuns to 52,163!

The decline in other places has also been great. Canada dropped from over 59,000 nuns in 1960 to fewer than 45,000 in 1972. And in the United States the decrease was from more than 180,000 in the mid-1960’s to fewer than 140,000 last year. But more significant than the number of departures is the type of women who are leaving.

An editor of a Catholic newspaper wrote: “There have been in recent years an unprecedented number of good Sisters leaving religious life.” Franciscan nun Mary Modde was more specific. She said that the ones leaving are “both young and middle-aged women who, to a large degree, are very well educated and who helped to form the core group of the apostolic community.”

What does that mean? Catholic leader Gabriel Moran put it bluntly: “Most of the young and imaginative people have left these groups.”

Are they being replaced?

Prospects for the Future

The 32-page report “Study of Entrances and Departures in Religious Communities of Women in the United States 1965-1972” provides the answer. Citing the study’s results, Mary Modde noted that, in 1965, 4,110 women entered the religious communities represented in the study, yet only 553 entered in 1972. Thus, while thousands of nuns are withdrawing, fewer and fewer women are replacing them. With what consequences?

For one thing, Roman Catholic schools have fewer nuns as teachers, and since hiring lay teachers as replacements is expensive, Catholic schools have been closing at a rate of about one a day. Catholic elementary- and secondary-school enrollments declined by 1,700,000 students between 1967 and 1971, a 30-percent drop! And the situation worsens. The Catholic Commonweal of February 2, 1973, under the heading “The Disappearing Nun,” reported:

“This is the season when Sisters are sending their ‘Dear John’ letters to pastors to whose parish schools they will not be returning in the fall. And this year the letters are especially numerous.”

The article then mentions dozens of schools from which nuns would be withdrawing in the states of New York, Massachusetts and Minnesota. It concludes:

“How bad is the situation? Perhaps not everywhere as bad as with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston, but their vocations problem gives some idea of what religious orders generally are up against these days in keeping their ranks replenished. Between 1966 and 1971, twenty new members entered the order; during the same period, the order lost 563 Sisters through death, retirement or departure from religious life. That’s a loss ratio of 28 to 1.”

Who are the nuns left in the convents? This can be a distressing question to Catholic officials. For one of every three nuns in the United States is sixty years old or older. In the Boston Archdiocese’s largest teaching order, the average age of the nuns is nearly sixty. But, as James Eblen, Seattle Archdiocesan director of communications, noted: “Even as recently as 20 years ago the vast majority of nuns were in their 20s and 30s.”

Is it any wonder, then, that some would suggest that religious orders may soon disappear entirely? It seems that even now many nuns are just waiting for the opportunity to leave, and others would depart if they could. Gabriel Moran indicated as much when he wrote in the National Catholic Reporter:

“Some people are there [in religious orders] because they are old, sick or helpless and they cannot do anything except hold on desperately to whatever remnants are left. There are other people who have enough freedom to go but are doubtful that they have a better alternative.”

What has brought about this deterioration of religious orders? Why are nuns, as Catholics express it, “losing their vocation”?

[Footnotes]

[Charts on page 8]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

Total number of nuns world wide

1,201,159

11

10

 9

879,939

 8

 7

 6

 5

1965 1971

hundreds of thousands

[Chart]

Number of new nuns in survey area

4,110

4

3

2

1

553

0

1965 1972

Why Nuns Leave

THERE have always been a few nuns who defect. But today’s exodus of tens of thousands of nuns has been unparalleled in numbers and in its shattering impact. Why have so many left?

A number of factors are involved. However, the principal cause has to do with the very structure and operation of the Catholic Church itself. Former nun Mercedes Alonso noted: “The steadily rising number of dedicated women who are daily leaving the convents is not creating the crisis but revealing it.”

What conditions in the Church have so disturbed nuns that thousands have defected?

A Major Reason for Defections

Nuns object, in particular, to what they consider meaningless traditions and restrictions. An example is the Church rule that forbids nuns to marry.

The law of celibacy was imposed centuries ago by rulers of the Church; it is admittedly not Scriptural. In fact, the recent Pope John XXIII said: “Ecclesiastical celibacy is not a dogma. The Scriptures do not impose it. It is even easy to effect a change.”

Thousands of nuns and priests have urgently appealed for such a change, some even citing the authority of the Holy Bible. Catholic theologian Hans Küng, for example, said: “Peter and the Apostles were, and stayed, married even in the full discipleship of Jesus, and this remained the pattern for the leaders of the community for many subsequent centuries.” (Matt. 8:14; 1 Cor. 9:5) Yet the Church has refused to change its celibacy law.

Thus, because of feeling unjustly forced to submit to a man-made law, many nuns have left their convents. Some have left the Catholic Church altogether, no doubt being reinforced in their decision by discovery of the Bible warning: “Now the Spirit manifestly saith that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils, . . . forbidding to marry.”​—1 Tim. 4:1-3, Douay Version.

Restrictive Regulations

Yet celibacy is only one of the Church laws by which nuns have felt oppressed. Regulations that dictated the type of habit, or uniform, nuns must wear was another source of irritation. Many considered the habit unbecoming and uncomfortable, especially during hot weather.

Also, many nuns considered it a needless humiliation to have their heads shorn so as to wear the elaborate headgear. “In all the years I spent as a religious,” said one former nun, “I never got used to the fact of being without my hair; when uncoiffed I simply avoided looking into mirrors unless it was absolutely necessary.”

Then there are regulations on discipline. Midge Turk, who spent some eighteen years as a nun, explains in her 1971 autobiography The Buried Life: “The discipline was a twelve-inch whip, the shaft made of braided venetian blind cord that flowered at the tip into four knotted strips. We were told to use it in private only on Wednesday and Friday afternoons for a specified period of time, according to the written regulation, and to use it only on our backs, legs, or buttocks.” But not only does this “severe treatment of the body” find no support in the Scriptures, but many consider the practice demeaning and medieval.​—Col. 2:20-23.

In addition, there are rules that enforce periods of silence, regulate periods of prayer and meditation, and so on. The endless regulations, many of which seem unjust and ridiculous, frustrate nuns. Even Leo Cardinal Suenens in his 1963 book The Nun in the World acknowledged that, in many cases, nuns were prisoners of outdated rules that waste their potential and effectiveness.

“We were forbidden even to talk to fellow nuns, unless we had permission,” explained a nun who spent more than seventeen years in a Brooklyn, New York, convent. “In fact, it was marked in the Holy Rule that the simple gesture of touching each other was forbidden. This rule was an overreaction to the accusations of lesbianism, which were rampant in the medieval religious community.”

True, within the past decade, changes in some of the above regulations have been achieved. But changes did not come easily. Long despairing conflicts with Church authorities were involved, and reform was granted only after it seemed that it was the only way to save the nun community. Thus, many nuns left because of being frustrated at every turn in their attempts to initiate reform.

This occurred, for example, in 1970 in Los Angeles, California. There, about 315 of the 380 nuns of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary departed en masse. They were led by the head of the order, Anita Caspary, who had earlier given up her religious name, Mother Humiliata.

However, not only outdated rules and frustrating attempts to change them have caused nuns to leave. The very climate within convents is perhaps the major factor.

Attitudes and Conduct

Nuns often point to a lack of warmth and friendliness in convents, and this has contributed to the decision of many to leave. As one might well imagine, such rules as those that enforce silence, prohibit free discussion and forbid even touching one another contribute to a cold, formal atmosphere in convents.

It is frequently noted that human feeling is absent. “Attempts at normal, healthy friendships were discouraged, and even looked upon with suspicion,” explained a former nun. “I missed intimacy,” another former nun noted, “the kind of closeness you feel only as a part of a big, close-knit family.”

Nuns further observed that genuine concern for the welfare of others was missing within the Church. Midge Turk, who advanced to administrative roles as a nun, complained: “Never once during meetings with diocese officials was the subject of the worth of the human beings I was working with ever mentioned.” No doubt it was this type of attitude that a Catholic editor had in mind when he wrote that nuns were “leaving religious life because their community was for them more of a hindrance than a help to Christian living.”

Also, many nuns are leaving because they feel stifled​—all initiative and innovation are squelched. In 1967 Jacqueline Grennan, nationally recognized educator in the United States, abandoned her religious order, explaining: “Under the vow of obedience . . . I came to realize that I could not live as a responsible and productive human being.”

Then, too, nuns often feel as though they are treated as children​—indeed, practically every decision and move are dictated for them. The way the Catholic Church is structured contributes to this. The Mother Superior, for instance, is granted great powers over the lives of nuns, which tends to make her feel that she is somebody special. One woman, who left after spending seven years in convents in Argentina and Chile, reported:

“The superiors required total obedience. This, in fact, amounted to idolatry because, according to them, God placed them in their positions and therefore all had to give them unquestioned obedience. . . . The obedience they required reached such an extreme that we had to bow down before them, without ever questioning them.”

Catholic priest Luke Delaney, who spent about a quarter of a century organizing convent missions, pointed to such attitudes of superiors as the cause for the great exodus of nuns from convents in Ireland. He said:

“Some Mother Superiors are mulishly stubborn, conceited in their conservatism . . . They adopt restrictive practices . . . Nowadays young women will not stand for petticoat dictatorship in convents. They just quit.”

It may be noted, however, that all these conditions have existed for generations​—the celibacy, the restrictive regulations, the unloving, authoritarian attitudes, and so forth. “Why, then,” persons may ask, “has it been now, within the past decade, that the dramatic exodus of nuns has been occurring?”

Why Mass Departures Now

The Second Vatican Council, of 1962 to 1965, with its efforts at renewal, is particularly responsible. Pope John XXIII noted that the purpose of the Council was “to let some fresh air into the Church.” Thus, in effect, an invitation was extended to the religious to examine their vocation, to think for themselves. With what consequences?

In her 1972 letter of withdrawal, after spending nearly eighteen years in the Visitation of Holy Mary convent in Bayridge, Brooklyn, one nun explained: ‘Many of the Sisters became disillusioned as we tried to update our customs and traditions. But stiff resistance was met from those who opposed updating. No wonder so many are leaving the convents.’

Investigations by nuns revealed that numerous regulations that governed their lives were meaningless and needlessly restrictive, rather than helpful to Christian living. For instance, their habit or dress, which supposedly was of sacred origin, they discovered is simply the type of dress peasants wore centuries ago. Also, the curtains around their beds, which they thought had some holy significance, they learned served originally only for warmth, and hence are entirely unnecessary in these days of central heating!

The Second Vatican Council had invited the investigations that led to the eventual disillusionment and conflicts when attempts at updating were made. But there is another factor that has contributed to the mass exodus of nuns. This is the changing attitude, as well as status, of women in the world.

Nuns have been caught up in the spirit of the women’s liberation movement, which blossomed in the mid-1960’s. Thus imbued by a new sense of independence, nuns have been encouraged to strike out from their convents when they become disillusioned. This gives courage to yet others to leave, and in this way the exodus has gained momentum.

Another Important Factor

However, efforts at Church renewal led to other discoveries that have confused many nuns. Saints were dropped, meat can now be eaten on Fridays, and images were removed from churches. But that is not all. One former nun observed: “I also learned that basic Catholic teachings such as the Trinity, immortality of the soul, purgatory, limbo and hellfire are unscriptural and of pagan origin.”

The fact becomes evident: The Catholic Church simply is not teaching the Bible truth about God and his purposes! No wonder discouragement among nuns spreads. “I felt that I was starving spiritually,” noted one former nun from Adams, Massachusetts. “There was no talk or hope of God’s kingdom in our convent. We seldom ever talked about God spontaneously.” Even Catholic authorities began openly to acknowledge the spiritual deprivation. For example, Catholic priest Andrew M. Greeley wrote recently:

“There is a religious energy crisis in the church that is even more serious than the petroleum shortage. Vast numbers of people are hungry for religion, for illumination and direction of the critical questions of life and death, good and evil, love and hatred, unity and diversity, God and man.

“The last place they can look to for illumination in 1974 will be the Roman Catholic church (and it won’t do them much better to look toward other churches either).”​—The National Catholic Reporter, January 11, 1974.

Can you blame nuns for leaving a church that even its own priest describes in this way? But if other churches are just as spiritually deprived, where can one go for Bible truth regarding God and his purposes?

Nuns Are Finding Satisfying Answers

There is a source of reliable spiritual instruction. After leaving the convent in 1969, the former nun from Adams, Massachusetts, observed: “I ceased going to church. I had come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church was not teaching the truth, but I had no idea where to go to find it. Later two of Jehovah’s witnesses came to my door and I gladly welcomed them into my house to talk.

“I did research on what was being taught me by the Witnesses, because I wanted to be sure that I was not being misled again. However, after two or three studies I knew that Jehovah’s witnesses were teaching the truth from the Bible. It was too reasonable not to be true. I was especially pleased to learn that God is not a Trinity.”

But not only is it gratifying to learn the truth regarding God and his grand purposes, it is heartwarming too to experience the genuine love that exists among Jehovah’s witnesses. “This attracted me more than even their Bible teachings,” noted a former nun of ten years who was baptized by Jehovah’s witnesses last January in Paraguay.

Are you a nun, or were you? Have you been associated with any religious organization? Do you desire to serve God in the manner that Christ and his early followers did? Would you enjoy the warm, loving companionship of modern-day Christians who truly imitate first-century Christians? Jehovah’s witnesses will be most happy to help you. Just speak with them the next time they call in your area, or write to the publishers of this magazine.