American nuns are beginning to kick the habit. The evidence is unmistakable.
Last year the number of nuns decreased by 4,750—the first major decline in years. But more important than the nuns who quit are the nuns who stay and fight the system.
“Sweeping changes in the rules and practices of religious orders are on the way,” predicts Sister Aloysius Schalden-brand, a college philosophy instructor, with heady optimism. “Old restrictive rules are tumbling as the store of energy within the convents bursts its bounds, and nothing will stop that process now.”
Though she sounds more like a suffragette than a sister, her attitude reflects the spirit of a growing group coming to be known as the “new nuns.” Having vowed to be poor, chaste, and obedient, they are suddenly aware of a responsibility to themselves to be revolutionary as well.
“There has been a dramatic change in the involvement of the American sisters,” says Sister M. Audrey Kopp of Marylhurst College. “They want to be relevant.”
Predictably, the reaction of the hierarchy is mixed.
“Sisters are, or are rapidly becoming, the best educated, the most prophetic, the most dedicated and farthest out in front in their desire to implement the new mind of the church,” says Auxiliary Bishop Joseph M. Breitenbeck, vicar of Detroit’s 6,000 nuns. “Not to utilize fully this great resource of the church would be tragic.”
But to others in the church (probably the majority), the real tragedy is the new nun herself.
One mother superior who has had to deal with this new spirit in a convent says that the new nun represents an extremely small minority who are not so interested in relevance as in simple rebellion. “They want all the benefits of being a nun, without any of the restrictions.”
Whether for rebellion or renewal, however, the new nun is restless, and the focus of her attack is the complete control of her life by the convent.
There are now in this country 176,000 nuns scattered through 480 orders. Whatever her rank, each nun is regimented in her life—from dress to vocation—by a rigid chain of command that leads ultimately to Rome.
In the eyes of the church, a nun accepts her vows so she may more perfectly serve God. Any differences she may have with the system are to be resolved through simple obedience. The growing view in the convent, however, is that the system often produces suffocation and should be reshaped.
The search for a new role for religious orders dates from Vatican II and the church’s increased emphasis on social action. The council called for convents to be “modified according to conditions of time and place and outdated customs done away with,” and instructed each order to conduct a self-study.
The new nuns hope to translate this spirit into action. The convent, they say, should promote social involvement, not restrict it. Where there is a conflict, it must be the system, not the sisters, that change.
Catholic Growth Lag?
The official annual directory published last month shows record totals for U. S. Roman Catholics in membership (46,864,910, including children) and clergy (59,892) for calendar year 1966. But there were signs of a possible decline on the horizon.
The number of converts (117,478) was the lowest since 1953, and candidates for the priesthood dropped 6 per cent. While high school and college enrollment rose, the elementary school total dropped 122,108, to 4,369,845. There were 84,096 fewer infant baptisms in 1966 than in 1965.
The convert figures, watched by Catholic traditionalists, have dropped since Vatican II. But over the past decade, Catholic growth has amounted to an impressive 35 per cent, compared to a 15 per cent increase in Protestantism.
While the fight has not been without its minor victories, the new nuns still face the frustration expressed by Sister Claire Sawyer: “We are intelligent people, well trained in our professions, but too often we are treated like children.”
What nuns have on their minds is as important to the church as to the convent. Without the nuns, Pope Pius XII used to say, the work of the church is “almost inconceivable.”
If anything, he was understating the case. Nuns form the backbone of the labor force of almost every important church activity. More to the point, they do it inexpensively.
Nowhere is their presence more vital than in education. More than 100,000 nuns now work in Catholic education. The dollar replacement value of that contribution has been estimated at $200 million yearly.
With the increasing problems Catholic education is facing—a decrease this year of nearly 100,000 elementary and high-school students, for example, combined with fears of reduced federal aid to private-school children—a revolt among nuns could be devastating.
But while the power held by religious orders is great, the church’s hierarchy appears convinced that it is much more than they will ever use. As a result their demands often are treated as trifles.
Only reluctantly, for example, did church fathers invite a few women to attend the Vatican Council—and then only as voteless observers. In the convent, when nuns are able to enter into discussions on procedures, most often the talk is limited to secondary questions of dress or work conditions.
To many church conservatives, religious orders need to stay the same more than they need to change. If there is currently a revolt spreading among the nuns, the fault, they say, is more with the nuns who spread dissatisfaction than with the system itself. And they attribute the decline in the number of nuns to increased competition from other opportunities open to young people for social service, among them the foreign and domestic Peace Corps.
But to church reformers with their preoccupation for renewal, the question goes deeper.
“Open your eyes and count,” warns Rev. Blase Bonpane, vocational director for Maryknoll College. “They are quitting because they think they can be more Christian somewhere else. Does blindness have to be part of our life?”
The Protestant Nuns
The nun in Protestantism is rare. Only four major U. S. denominations have them, and the total number is probably under 2,000.
Known usually as “deaconesses,” they generally have no specific dress and few restricting vows beyond obedience. Often they are free to marry. Few live in convents.
The Methodist Church lists the largest group, with 390 now active. The Lutheran Church in America ranks second with 200. LCA nuns wear a uniform and are sworn to celibacy, unlike the 100 nuns of the third-ranked Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
The Protestant Episcopal Church has both deaconesses and nuns. The church’s forty-five deaconesses have no vows or uniform and are free to marry (though none ever have). The church also has an undisclosed number of nuns connected with fifteen independent orders. Like those in the Roman Catholic Church, Episcopal nuns live a convent life under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Women in Protestant religious orders work primarily in education and social service. Although all four denominations report recruitment campaigns, membership in orders has tended to remain constant.
Miscellany
The U.S. House of Representatives passed and sent to the Senate a bill to maintain federal aid for elementary and secondary schools. A controversial amendment to turn over control of funds to states (May 26 issue, page 44) was defeated, but a number of related compromises were incorporated. Several states forbid church school aid.
As a follow-up to the World Congress on Evangelism, one of the largest groups of French-speaking evangelicals ever assembled met in Lausanne, Switzerland, to discuss the theology and methodology of evangelism. Leaders were Scripture Union’s Maurice Ray and Jean-Paul Benoit, former evangelism director of the French Reformed Church.
The newsletter of the National Council of Catholic Men suggests that churches be required to pay taxes on unrelated business income. It recommends study of the issue by courts or Congress.
Militant Hindus are urging India to make conversion of Hindus to other faiths a criminal offense, as it is in neighboring Nepal.
The 124,000 Baptists in the western Congo are asking their government for legal recognition as a body independent of overseas control. Detroit Negro pastor Louis Johnson had complained to American Baptist missions officials about U. S. control and related policies.
The Lutheran World Federation plans to expand Radio Voice of the Gospel, its Ethiopia-based station, possibly to Angola, Mozambique, and Latin America.
Pope Paul ratified the four representatives U. S. bishops chose to go to this fall’s Synod of Bishops in Rome. They are Lawrence Cardinal Shehan of Baltimore, Archbishops John Dearden of Detroit and John Krol of Philadelphia, and Bishop John Wright of Pittsburgh.
The Evangelical Press Association gave its “Periodical of the Year” award to This Day, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod monthly, and presented fifty-five other prizes.
The American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry is moving offices from New York to Chicago and will increase efforts to train clergymen in counseling.
In annual missions-giving marathons, The Peoples Church of Toronto raised $325,000, and Boston’s Park Street Church more than $300,000.
Georgia Presbyterians were told that the church’s well-heeled Thornwell Orphanage in Clinton, South Carolina, cannot be racially integrated because this would cause community discord, staff resignations, reduced contributions, and church conflicts.
In reaction to open-housing demonstrations in Louisville, Kentucky’s Transylvania Presbytery urged cities in its area to adopt open-housing ordinances, citing national pronouncements from the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
Governor Buford Ellington signed on May 18 a bill that repeals Tennessee’s law against teaching evolutionary theories on the origin of man. Only Arkansas and Mississippi retain anti-evolution statutes.
For the first time, a Roman Catholic unit has been elected a participating organization in a National Council of Churches agency. The Maryknoll Missionary Society will have a seat on the board of the NCC education department.
The Centennial School District in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, decided not to appeal to the state Supreme Court a ruling against distribution of Gideons Bibles to pupils. The books can be used if they have a “reasonable relationship” to curriculum. A district near Pittsburgh plans to distribute New Testaments under the rationale that they are great world literature.
Personalia
A decision by the administration of Waynesburg College not to renew the contract of Religious Life Director Dennis C. Benson was backed by a faculty vote of 34 to 21.
The Rev. Rodger Harrison, an American Baptist Convention missionary to Sweden, will become the chaplain to English-speaking Protestants in Moscow, on behalf of the National Council of Churches.
Bishop Ruben Josefson has been chosen Lutheran Archbishop of Uppsala and primate of the Church of Sweden’s seven million members.
Paul Fromer, editor of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship’s His magazine, was elected president of the Evangelical Press Association.
Evangelist Billy Graham joined War on Poverty chief Sargent Shriver for a weekend visit of poverty programs in Graham’s home region of western North Carolina.
The new president of Union Theological Seminary (Presbyterian) in Richmond, Virginia, is the Rev. Dr. Fred R. Stair, Jr., 49, pastor of Atlanta’s Central Presbyterian Church, who was assistant to the UTS president from 1948 to 1953.
Joseph Wightman was installed as the president of Erskine College, Due West, South Carolina, in ceremonies that included an address by Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
Dallas Cowboys football coach Tom Landry, named 1966 National Football Coach of the Year, told a meeting of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes that “ultimate satisfaction rests in religious belief.”
Accepting a Catholic Press Association award for the “most distinguished contribution to Catholic journalism,” the Rev. John Reedy, editor of the national weekly Ave Maria, said that “the most important development in the U. S. Catholic press in the last ten years was the founding of the National Catholic Reporter,” an independent weekly.
The Rev. Martin Duffy, white pastor of the predominantly Negro Mountain Vernon Heights Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), Mount Vernon, New York, has resisted an attempt by a group of members to have him dismissed for his work in civil-rights causes. The congregation voted 50 to 40 to retain him.
Richard L. Riseling has been named director of international affairs of the American Baptists’ Division of Christian Social Concern.
Orley S. Herron, dean of students at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, will become an associate professor of education at the University of Mississippi.
