The bold is mine.There is a huge shortage in my neck of the woods!! I can’t tell you the last time I saw a nun here in West Michigan. Every report I read says they have declined:
In 1965, 104,000 sisters were teaching, while in 2002 there were only 8,200 teachers (79% decline).
BBC reported on February 5, 2008
Priests. While the number of priests in the United States more than doubled to 58,000, between 1930 and 1965, since then that number has fallen to 45,000. By 2020, there will be only 31,000 priests left, and more than half of these priests will be over 70.
Ordinations. In 1965, 1,575 new priests were ordained in the United States. In 2002, the number was 450. In 1965, only 1 percent of U.S. parishes were without a priest. Today, there are 3,000 priestless parishes, 15 percent of all U.S. parishes.
Seminarians. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700, a decline of over 90 percent. Two-thirds of the 600 seminaries that were operating in 1965 have now closed.
Sisters. In 1965, there were 180,000 Catholic nuns. By 2002, that had fallen to 75,000 and the average age of a Catholic nun is today 68. In 1965, there were 104,000 teaching nuns. Today, there are 8,200, a decline of 94 percent since the end of Vatican II.
Religious Orders. For religious orders in America, the end is in sight. In 1965, 3,559 young men were studying to become Jesuit priests. In 2000, the figure was 389. With the Christian Brothers, the situation is even more dire. Their number has shrunk by two-thirds, with the number of seminarians falling 99 percent. In 1965, there were 912 seminarians in the Christian Brothers. In 2000, there were only seven. **The number of young men studying to become Franciscan and Redemptorist priests fell from 3,379 in 1965 to 84 in 2000. **
Catholic schools. Almost half of all Catholic high schools in the United States have closed since 1965. The student population has fallen from 700,000 to 386,000. Parochial schools suffered an even greater decline. Some 4,000 have disappeared, and the number of pupils attending has fallen below 2 million – from 4.5 million.
From where I’m standing there has been a decline in Sisters but hopefully I am mistaken.
I knew of the religious orders for women. And mens Holy orders. Only by reading more about religion and experiencing visitations from Sisters, and priests in the hospital did I learn about the difference. That was at the age of 5. The fact that my mother was raised Catholic, went to Catholic grade school and high school and graduted from a Catholic highschool, [that she was discerning being a nun cloistered, and consecrated to our Lord, but during discernment, missed her family too much, and was sent home]We have to be very careful how numbers are used. Most of us on CAF were probably born after WW II. We grew up in the Catholic Church of the second half of the 20th century and in the USA. The numbers of priests and religious after WW II was unprecedented. If we want to get a realistic view of the state of religious and clerical vocations we must look at the numbers prior to 1900. When we do so, we find that the numbers of men entering diocesan seminaries and religious orders and the number of women entering religious orders and religious congregations is actually about the same today as it was prior to WW II.
Those of us who were born between 1940 and 1960 were used to seeing large numbers of people entering the seminary or the religious life and we grew up believing that this was normal. But it was not. this was an explosion that happens every couple of generations.
The Church certainly prays for more vocations to the priesthood, but she must also pray for more male vocations to the religious life. We need more monks, friars and clerks regular to live the consecrated life.
I worry that the lay faithful may not appreciate the value of a religious life for men where the men do not do parish work, but live among the poor, spend time alone or together in community prayer and community activities. This causes me worry because it makes me wonder if our faithful Catholic have become product oriented, meaning focused on the productivity of the religious instead of the quality of the spiritual life of the religious, which is really how religious men serve the Church.
It is also disconcerting that most Catholics think that religious should be priests. Most priests are not religious and most religious orders were not founded as orders of priests. We serve the Church by earning graces for the world. The more faithful that we are to what God called us to be, the more graces the Church receives.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
God Bless you allI’ve learned so much from these posts, thanks for taking the effort!First . . . nuns at your parish school.
Nuns have never been allowed in parishes or anywhere outside of monasteries. They are enclosed. The women religiuos who teach school and do other external apostolic work are not nuns. To be a nun you must belong to a religious order and you must be in solemn vows. Only women who are enclosed can be members of religious orders and make solemn vows.
Women who teach, nurse, and do other corporal works of mercy, even Mother Teresa, are not nuns, because they do not belong to an order or make solemn vows. They are consecrated women religious called sisters. They belong to congregations and make simple vows. Gotcha!
Second . . . praying for religious vocations.
Most lay people do not know the difference between sacrament of Holy Orders and the consecrated life. Therefore when they pray for religious vocations they usually think of women religious.
The consecrated life was actually founded for brothers, not priests or women religious. St. Scholastica is the first known woman religious. Notice that I said known.
The oldest consecrated religious are the Carmelite men. They were a community of brothers, not priests. To this day, consecrated religious are brothers, sisters and nuns. When the Church asks us to pray for religious vocations she’s asking us to pray for more brothers, sisters and nuns. Priests may become brothers by virtue of the fact that they may join a religious order. Many orders and congregations also allow their brothers to be ordained. However, ordination is not a requirement for the religious life, because the Sacrament of Holy Orders is accidental not essential to the religious life. It is a separate calling.
How many lay people pray for more male religious who are not priests but instead are theologians, doctors, teachers, spiritual directors, parish administrators, hospital chaplains, seminary professors, cooks, gardners, mechanics, soup kitchen and shelter administrators, hermits, monks, social workers, child care givers, work pregnancy centers, do street ministry, and more?
If you’re only praying for women religious and for male religious who are priests, but not for other male religious, then you are not praying for religious vocations. You’re praying for a very specific group of people, not for the religious life, Gotcha!
I have a very good friend who is a diocesan priest and I asked him if he prayed for religoius vocations. He said “Of course.” When I asked him to explain, every male religious that he mentioned was an ordained religious. He completely forget that religious men are not always priests. Just thought I throw something in there before you got down your knees to pray for more SISTERS, also pray for more male religious. Thanks.
My community is one of those that has only 20% ordained men. We don’t run parishes or celebrate sacraments outside of our houses. Therefore, we do not need the large numbers of ordained brothers. But we do need many brothers to care for the sick, elderly and unborn. Please pray for more vocation for us too.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Thank you Br JR, we have a lot to think about. We thank you for your post. I will and do pray that there is an increase in the religious orders of Brothers, nuns, priests, and monks, as well as Clerks regular, I hope we have not upset you. And I apologize if I have upset you. We will pray for these things.I would never dare question the motives of the people who pray for vocations. I do have serious questions about the desires of our faithful. Since the explosion of the Internet we get to hear more from the average Catholic than we did before. Many of us who are religious men have serious concerns about what we see and hear from the average Catholic concerning the religious life of men.
That’s the point that is disconcerting, that the average Catholic does not know what a male religious is and believe that we are all priests. In my own religious house we have no priests. In my religious community only 10% of our men are priests and none are deacons. We do not allow permanent deacons. We have one bishop.
When we (male religious) look at these threads and listen to you guys we become concerned that you may not know that we are here and what we are. We are men who are consecrated to living the Gospel in obedience, poverty and chastity. We follow the rule of our founders and their vision for holiness. Our lives center around prayer and brotherhood with each other. We serve you, the laity, by surrendering our lives to Christ and praying for you while you’re at work, asleep, taking care of your children and doing what you need to do to keep our world running smoothly and hopefully running according to God’s plan.
Some of us go out and do specific ministries among you. Many of us never get to meet you. We reamin behind closed doors quietly praying and working alongside each other. Whether we teach in your schools, preach in your churches or retreat houses, feed the hungry in your cities, provide for the unborn, the sick and the dying or we’re rocket scientists, the fact remains that our lives are shared with you through the mystery of prayer, faith and sacraments.
Many of us never celebrate mass, hear confessions, baptize, burry the dead or visit a parish. Many of us never get to meet you, because most of you are probably middle class and most of us do not work among the middle class. It’s contrary to the vision of our founders. But we’re your brothers who do penance for you, in case you forget to do it for yourselves. We bring you with us to chapel every day when we gather to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. When we visit the poor we bring to them your message of love and your desire for their well-being, because we do not go in our name, but in the name of the Church to which you belong along with us.
What we notice is that we are very aware of your presence in the world, but you don’t seem to know that we’re here. It is often sad to realize that you forget to pray for us and forget to ask God to send us more brothers to live this life of total dedication to the Gospel for the common good of all men and women.
I know that male religious are a mystery to most of you. Many of you know what a deacon, priest, bishop and sister is. But a male religious is not someone that you frequently meet. There are a few male religious that do serve in your parishes. These are often those male religous who are ordained and take on parishes to help the bishops.
But we’d like you, the laity to know, that those of our brothers who are ordained are not representative of our life. They are a small number of us. There are many of us who will never set foot in your parishes, because we’re doing other things in other parts of the world and in other Church ministries. The most important ministry in which we engage is the ministry of prayer and contemplation.
We hope that when you pray for vocations to the religious life, don’t just pray for more religoius to serve you in your parishes as priests. However, please pray for more male religious whom you will never meet or see in a parish, but who will give their lives on the cross, along with Christ, in faithful obedience to God the Father doing whatever God wishes us to do for his greater glory and for the salvation of all people.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
I believe there are several new phenomenon that took place during the second half of the 20th century. This is the emergence of a middle class. The emergence of the middle class created some new and daunting challenges for the Church, especially in regards to vocations.JR your commentary has certainly opened my eyes greatly and the fact that this thread has had some truly wonderful comments and educated a lot of people is fantastic. I learned more about Monks, friars, brothers, nuns and sisters than I ever knew before and I think it is superb the things you folks do for us.
The only point I was trying to make was that in our community there has been a tremendous decline in the number of you religious folks --the obvious sisters and priests who are in out community. While these numbers may have had a spike since World War Two as you say, in my lifetime, I was born in 1968 the area around our city had fourteen Catholic churches, all of these had schools attached to them, a convent full of Sisters that were the teachers for most every grade in the schools, and they had three to four priests in the rectory. Nowadays these same fourteen parishes have only one priest in the rectory, the convents are empty having been changed to parish offices or day care centers, There are no sisters teaching in the schools and six of the schools have been closed. In this sense I still believe that this form of religious is dwindling and I’m sure that is one of the things my priest is talking about when he asks us to pray for vocations, and the diocese means with its, Few, The Proud, The Called Campaign promoting vocations.
I really do Thank You for educating me more with regard to Religious Vocation and now my prayers will include you folks that do so much for all of us.
Fear is a very human thing. I think that most of us understand this. But do not be afraid. God does not abandon his people.
The habit is a very tricky question. It is true that there is a mytique that goes with the habit. It is also true that many founders had no intention of investing their members in habits. In some religious communities that habit was a matter of fact from the beginning. But in others it was imposed on them by bishops or simply by custom. Those communities upon whom the habit was imposed were given permission to put it aside. In Vita Consacrata, Pope John Paul II explicitly tells religious communities that were founded to be habitless, to do so and those that were founded to wear a habit to do that as well.
It’s funny that you say this, because most religious communities are hoping that we don’t have another explosion for a very long time. Large communities are very hard to govern. It’s very difficult to live intimate fraternal lives in large communities. They are frat houses, rather than families. In the large communities of men, the priests took over and turned them into clerical institutes where everything revolved around the clerics and their work. All other ministries were suppressed. The community schedule and life was guided by the work of the priests. If Father had to hear confessions at a certain time, you could not have community prayer, recreation or meals. Every man had his own schedule to follow. I don’t think God wants that from religious men. Externally, it gives the impression of meeting a need of the faithful. But in fact, it does not. The greatest need that God’s people have is the need for holiness. It’s hard to cultivate holiness in frat houses. It can be done, but it’s not easy.
Intersting post and quite correct.I believe there are several new phenomenon that took place during the second half of the 20th century. This is the emergence of a middle class. The emergence of the middle class created some new and daunting challenges for the Church, especially in regards to vocations.
The old model of the urban parish with everyone in the same neighborhood evolved… As Catholics continue to spread far and wide over suburbia, there is a need for more parishes. Populations of Catholics are no longer concentrated in the city, but they are all over the place. This need for parishes places a great stress on bishops who have to spread their man power thin. It also places a burden on religious communities who are trying to help the bishops serve the many Catholics all over the place. It’s not an easy challenge to meet.
There is also the daunting novelty of middle class. For religious, the middle class is problematic. With few exceptions, religious generally served the poor. There were orders of preachers and teachers such as the Dominicans and Jesuits who served all the social classes. But most congregations of sisters were founded to serve the poor. The large orders of men, such as the Franciscans, Vincentians, Salesians and others were founded to live and work among the poor. We never lived and served among the wealthy and there was no real middle class prior to WW II. It was very small compared to today.
There are many challenges to be met. Let’s pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us and show us how to do this.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Priests are cetainly needed for parish ministry. There is no doubt about this.
She wore the Benedictine habit. Remember, I said that it was imposed on her until two days before her death when the rule written by her and St. Francis was finally approved and sealed with a Papal Bull so that it can never be touched again. That’s how many Poor Clares came to wear the Benedictine habit, but not all. Others designed their own habits and others have never worn a habit, because it was not in Clare’s rule. Every Poor Clare Monastery is autonomous.
