If Nuns Ruled the World Read Free

Trent? One theory was that the Church was after the nuns’ property. Still another maintained that the nuns had become a public relations crisis for the Church. Were the nuns so hip they made the rest of the Church look even more antiquated?
    In the spring of 2010, the Visitation began on-site visits led by Mother Mary Clare Millea, a matronly American nun with a doctorate in canon law from Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University. After visiting four hundred religious institutes across the country, Millea found herself unable to reproach the nuns. In her 2012 report to the Vatican she admitted that she had been humbled by their work.
    â€œAs I learned of and observed firsthand the perseverance of the religious in the United States in their vocations, in their ministries and in their faith—and witnessed the fruits of their service—I have been both inspired and humbled. Although there are concerns in religious life that warrant support and attention, the enduring reality is one of fidelity, joy, and hope,” Millea said.
    Nuns face another crisis outside of the Vatican—an aging population and a slowdown in recruitment. There has been more than a 70 percent decline in their numbers since 1965.
    The number of Catholic nuns in America dropped from 179,954 in 1965 to 51,247 in 2013, according to Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). Worldwide orders are not robust, but not in as dire straits as in the United States—globally the number of women religious dropped from 1,004,304 in 1970 to 721,935 in 2013.
    Because of their dwindling numbers, Catholic nuns in America have been placed on a deathwatch. “American Catholics have no idea how very soon there will be no nuns,” Sister Patricia Wittberg, a church sociologist at Indiana University, told the Los Angeles Times in 1994.
    Sister Eleace King, a research associate at Georgetown’s CARA, told me, “The majority of religious congregations of women in this country will not survive. Most are dying.”
    Nuns confuse people because they don’t have many of the things Americans think of as the trappings of a good and “normal” life: marriage, kids, a sex life. The one thing everyone asks me when they find out I’ve been writing a book about nuns is: why would anyone choose that kind of life?
    I asked the sisters that very question over and over again. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t, at some point, wondered it myself.
    The first part of nuns’ answer to that question is spiritual. All of these women, at some point in their lives, but very often before puberty, felt a calling from God. Many describe the calling as an intense feeling that grew into a life-changing idea. This is practically unfathomable to someone lacking the God gene, but it is what I have heard consistently across almost each and every nun’s personal narrative. I believe them.
    The second part of the answer is practical. These women wanted to live an authentic life of service, and they couldn’t do that as married women trying to raise a family­. I also heard over and over again that nuns experience an uncommon­ sense of peace and happiness in their lives. We live in a society constantly searching for ways to live an authentic life. Nuns already do. They do exactly what they love, are unapologetic about it, and enjoy every single day to its fullest­. There is a marked lack of regret, and an ability­ to live in the moment that is rare. They tell me that they don’t feel like anything is missing. After conducting countless interviews with nuns, I can say that these women have no doubt that Jesus Christ is the great love of their lives and service is their highest calling.
    The most interesting explanation I heard for the decision­ to eschew romantic relationships in favor of a symbolic marriage­ to Jesus came from a woman named Sara Marks. She is around my age, pretty and blond, with