Too Few Nuns

A threatened shortage of sisters in the U.S.--alarming news for Roman Catholics, if true--was revealed last week by the Rev. Edward F. Garesche, a Manhattan Jesuit. His surveys of 43 American sisterhoods (one of which has already appeared in the Catholic weekly America} shows that they now receive only about three-fourths of the candidates they need, and the number of postulants has slumped steadily since 1936.

Three reasons were suggested by Father Garesche: the changed economic position of women; the fact that since 1929 many girls could get jobs more easily than their brothers and often had to help support their families; growth of more secular social work, which offered the satisfaction of service without imposing so many restrictions. A fourth reason was suggested by Sister Christina, Immaculate Heart of Mary: The declining size of the average Catholic family. Her supporting data showed that girls from large families are much more apt to embrace a religious life in a nunnery.

The 152,159 nuns play a major part in Catholic work in the U.S. Organized in 206 orders, large and small, they far outnumber all the nation's Quakers, are twice as numerous as the population of Charleston, S.C., three times as numerous as the nation's 50,203 Catholic priests and brothers. Any long-continued dearth of novices would be as serious for the church as drought is for a farmer.

Many great Catholic orders for men, like the Benedictines, Dominicans and Franciscans, have convents for nuns under similar rules. Others, like the Sisters of Mercy and Sisters of St. Joseph, were independently founded for women. The last two and the Sisters of Charity, are the biggest in the U.S., with more than 10,000 members each, bound by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

The Sisters of Charity are probably the best known to the average American, with their black habit, black cap and large black rosary. They devote themselves to welfare work, nursing, teaching.

Some nuns renew their vows every year, though most take perpetual vows.

Some orders, like the Benedictines and Ursulines, devote themselves chiefly to education. Sisters comprise the faculties of most U.S. parochial schools, with their convent often next to the school and as much a part of the parish plant as church and rectory. Other orders, like the Dominicans and Sisters of Mercy, are less cloistered and spend their time aiding the poor, sick, orphaned.

Each sisterhood is headed by a Mother General, the larger orders also having Mothers Provincial. All American convents are subject to the bishops of their respective dioceses.

Concludes Father Garesche: "Our time is not as favorable to the development of vocations as more simple and pious days. . . . The girl of today is as free and uncontrolled as her brother. Nowadays the sexes are almost equal in their opportunities for amusements, occupations and freedom of action in general. When women as a whole were kept in the home and subjected to strict discipline, either by fathers and mothers or by their husbands, there was not so much difference relatively between their life at home and the life of the cloister. Time has changed all that, and girls who enter Religion now show a courage and spirit of self-sacrifice which is truly notable."

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