On February 2, the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations offered the results of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate’s (CARA) “The Profession Class of 2010 Survey,” a survey of religious sisters who professed perpetual vows in 2010.
The survey was sent to sisters represented by the two conferences of religious women, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR), and contemplative communities. Respondents represented 52 religious orders.
Monsignor Charles Pope noted what he described as “puzzling omissions” in the report when compared to data from a similar 2009 report, that was commissioned by the National Religious Vocations Conference. Pope says that the latest report ignores the ‘elephant in the room,’ an elephant he describes as “the rather obvious fact that religious communities that preserve traditional elements such as the habit, common prayer, communal life, focused apostolates and strong affirmation of Church teaching, are doing well in comparison to orders that do not.”
This is not merely Pope’s opinion, but it comes directly from the 2009 report.
The 2009 report said:
“Younger respondents are more likely than older respondents to say they were attracted to religious life by a desire to be more committed to the Church and to their particular institute by its fidelity to the Church. Many also report that their decision to enter their institute was influenced by its practice regarding a religious habit. Significant generational gaps, especially between the Millennial Generation (born in 1982 or later) and the Vatican II Generation (born between 1943 and 1960), are evident throughout the study on questions involving the Church and the habit. Differences between the two generations also extend to questions about community life as well as styles and types of prayer”.
One striking difference that I noted between the two reports is that the 2009 report looked at the difference in those joining orders associated with the LCWR versus those joining the smaller CMSWR, while the 2011 report does not. The 2009 data showed that just 1% of religious orders associated with the LCWR have more than 10 women in the process of joining, whereas among the CMSWR, 28% reported having 10 or more candidates.
Another difference is that compared to other perpetually professed women religious that were reported in the 2009 study, the sisters of the Class of 2010 are significantly younger. The average age of the newly professed was 43. Four in 10 were under age 40.
Other interesting findings from the 2011 report include:
∙ 84% of Religious Communities had no one profess solemn vows in 2010.
∙ 84% of respondents had participated in a “Come and See” experience.
∙ Nine in 10 had previous work experience, most often in education, health care or banking.
∙ 74% of new sisters had participated in retreats; 65% prayed the Rosary regularly; 64% participated regularly in Eucharistic adoration, 57% participated in faith sharing or Bible study groups; one in five sisters had attended a World Youth Day.
∙ 64% of newly professed sisters came from families of five or more children.
∙ 52% of sisters had been encouraged to enter religious life by another sister. 51% were discouraged by parents or family members.
∙ 51% had attended Catholic elementary schools.
Comments
Post a Comment
Living a consecrated religious life with formal vows of poverty, chastity and obedience is a life nurtured enlivened by a personal love of Christ. We are created to love, to love someone greater than ourselves. In religious life, this love is expressed in prayer—personal devotion—and service to others through the ministries of the Church. The secularization process that afflicted so many religious orders in the 60’s and 70’s somehow managed to efface these two essential elements. An order of day that included personal and communal prayer, service to the community in which one lived, and an apostolate of service to the Church were somehow seen as no longer constituitive of religious life. Prayer became private, habits were dropped in favor of secular dress (and all the temptations to vanity that involved), community life was seen as passe, and women “discerned” their calling to jobs in the private sector. Well, you can see where that got us! Those orders are now, for all practical purposes, dead in the water. In more extreme cases, the magisterial authority of the Church was called into question as a militant feminism infected the fundamental identity of being a Catholic religious. And one must also mention radical feminist theologies that went so far as to deny the being and reality of Christ’s identity and redeeming death on the cross. Nuns, some of them, aligned themselves with popular causes such as abortion, gay marriage, and the list goes on. Anything to create a sensationist identity. Of course the press pursued these so-called Catholics to get their point of view on paper and TV. The newer orders, like Sisters for Life, have a vital, pure charism based on prayer and fidelity to the Church. Their joy is palpable, in contrast to those who constantly grind their axes over their so-called repression by Church authorities. I was in religious life back in the early 70’s and know of which I speak. I was far more bullied by the liberals in the community, who wanted to grind traditions into the dust, than by anything I ever experienced from the official Church. There was such a focus on self-fulfillment, on the whole me-thing, that I gave up on the venture. I was afraid if I stayed that I would never truly act out of love for anyone, just live for myself. I kept my personal sense of Christ in my life, married, raised children and now have grandchildren. God leads us where he would have us go.
Susan - Thank you for sharing your story. Surely there are many out there like you with similar experiences - men and women. God does lead us when we are open to Him. Any vocation, a state of life: marriage, religious or single, to which God ‘calls’ us, is our means to holiness when lived in relationship with Christ. Thankfully he preserved your love for Him and his Church so that you might share it with your grandchildren.
I watched a local religious community, which I will not name, abandon their charism to serve the poor in the ‘70s under the unfluence of “liberal” (they actually have nothing to do with freedom) younger nuns who joined an order which they evidently thought was doing everything wrong.? Anyway, their numbers have crashed; the institutions they founded and ran have been secularized, in fact, if not in name; and they run around in their upmarket pantsuits and outdated hairstyles wondering why nobody is following their lead. Why should they? The only thing I do that they don’t (they are mostly my contemporaries) is pay taxes; and the only thing they do that I don’t is subsitute “God” for “He” in the liturgy. Evidently Christian humility was part of the “medieval baggage” they got rid of. So at this point they have neither a baby or a bath.
I’m a happy and blessed member of the Salesian Sisters - the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians - the LARGEST female religious order, according to the latest Catholic Almanac. We have over 14,000 Sisters in over 85 countries, and even today have over 20 young women in formation in the US.
I always say that entering just after I finished high school in 1988 was the bravest and the smartest thing I’ve done in my life. I’m so happy because of the faith and audacity of my youth, which I hope to still have today.
Thanks be to God for our Sisters who preserved our fidelity to the Church, to the way St. John Bosco founded our order, and to all the practices of traditional religious life. God bless the Salesians and their work with the young and the poor!
REQUESTING FUNDS
Dear Sir, Madam,
With reference to the below mentioned, we would like to request a fund for our Non Government Organization in Bandarawela Sri Lanaka.
We are Sambavi Shahana Organization; Government registered Ngo in Sri Lanka. And we are developing and promoting below mentioned subjects since 2006.
• Youth Development
• Rehabilitation of unwed mothers
• Rehabilitation of orphans
• Rehabilitation of handicapped children and adults
• Rural village development
• Assistance to aboriginals
• Upliftment of estate workers
• Environmental protection
• Home gardening and fruit production
• Employment and housing
Visit our official web site www.ssolk.org for the more details and information.
Any further clarifications please do not hesitate to contact undersigned .authority.
Thanks and Best Regards
Dr Sharma
Executive Director
Tel: +94 57 2224591 / 2
Hot Line +94 77 3227005
Fax: +94 57 2232441
Web: www.ssolk.org
Email: info@ssolk.org
wwwssolk@gmail.com
ssorganization_9@yahoo.com
I teach in a school run by one of the orders that belongs to the LCWR camp. The order is noted for its aging members. The school is constantly under the threat of low enrollment. We are always in the middle of some campaign to increase enrollment. We go at it from every angle you can think of EXCEPT prayer. I have suggested that the faculty and staff meet to pray the rosary 20 minutes before our Open Houses - no takers, certainly not from the sisters. Our Pro-Life group is viewed with embarrassment at best, anger and hatred at worst. It seems that the majority of our teachers are non-(or ex-)Catholic. We are still trying (not very hard)to come out from under the shadow of a lesbian-promoting past.
You’d think the sisters that are left would wake up and smell the coffee.
“64% of newly professed sisters came from families of five or more children”
Right THERE is both the identification of our vocations crisis and the solution.
Dear Sir / Madam,
REQUEST FOR FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE ON HUMANITARIAN AND UPLIFTING SOCIAL SERVICE:
With reference to the above we wish to introduce our selves that, we are one of the NGO registered with the Government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka namely “SHAMBVI SHANA ORGANIZATION” operating in the city of Bandarawela of the Badulla District of Uva Province of the country.
This district is surrounded by the tea plantations and rural villages in which in the tea plantation could find populated by the Indian origin Tamil plantation workers whom are mostly back warded in their education, socio-economic upliftment for last a century. Though this community has counted to it’s development comparison to others are not equalized. The poor income, un facilitate shelter, less political participations are the barrier to them and the present and future generation. Apart from these facts they are in poor condition in healthcare, malnutrition, common amenities facility. They are with their limited liberty of their participation with the other community due to find difficulties for resources to promote their life from the grass root level and we are doing service to enhance the life of this community in under mention field since 2006.
• Youth Development by awareness programs.
• Rehabilitation for orphan mothers.
• Rehabilitation for orphan children
• Rehabilitation of handicapped children and adults
• Healthcare and common amenities development
• Assistance to aboriginals
• Upliftment of estate workers
• Environmental protection
• Home gardening and fruit production
• Self employment training, livestock, etc.
Please visit our web site www.ssolk.org for further details of our organization and donot hesitate to contact the undermentioned for further clarification. We sincerely trust your good spirit would kindly extend your precious assistance considering our humanitarian service with your best co-operation very fervently with your anticipation.
Thanks and Best Regards
Dr Sharma
Executive Director
Tel: +94 57 2224591 / 2, Hot Line: +94 77 3227005, Fax: +94 57 2232441
Web: www.ssolk.org
Email: info@ssolk.org
wwwssolk@gmail.com
ssorganization_9@yahoo.com
Every time I see a religious wearing a habit I make it a point to thank her!
Thank God we have turned the corner and the more traditional orders are flourishing.
I was present at 9/11. On the morning of the 12th I was walking by the Mother Seton church in the Battery (NYC) on my way to my job with
the US Navy at the USCG building on the battery.
I met a priest standing in front of the church smoking a cigarette and stopped to say hello and talk of God. It had been the longest 24 hours
of my life.
We discussed Nuns at length. I mentioned to him that Anglican nuns in
habits were set up in the Seamans Church and it was packed with cops and
fireman. Most of those cops and fireman were Catholic as it turns out.
There were no Catholic Nuns to be seen. Civilian dress on nuns is not what suffering men and women want to see. He suggested I write a letter to the UN rep from the Vatican. I never did, I wish I had, but alas many years have passed.
This is my attempt to partially right that failure to write the Vatican
representative.
Most Respectfully and in Christ
Michael Sweeny Flanagan
Captain United States Navy retired.
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.