Religious women from the Catholic Diocese of Joliet discuss the future of religious vocations

Few people would argue that the image of a vowed sister in the Catholic church has changed through the years.

But the four sisters and one associate from the Diocese of Joliet who gathered on Zoom on Friday to discuss changes in religious life wholeheartedly agreed vocations aren’t going away, even if their appearances change.

“Religious life is evolving, it isn’t dying,” said Jeanne Connolly, a covenant companion/associate with the Wheaton Franciscans for 28 years. “When we say it is, we make it about our human expectation of what it looks like instead of it being an answer to God’s calling.”

Catholic Sisters Week is celebrated March 8 through 14, and it’s an opportunity for nuns to share their gospel witness, spirituality and community, and to “encourage young women to consider a vocation to religious life,” according to the Catholic Sisters Week website.

Vatican II and the women’s movement often are cited as reasons why vocations to the religious life have dropped since the mid-1960s. However, part of the drop might be because of decreasing to Catholic numbers overall.

In 2019, Pew Research found that 1 in 5 adults surveyed – 20% - said they were Catholic. In 2009, 23% identified as Catholic.

At the same time, the number of lay people associated with religious communities may be rising.

In 2016, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate said in a special report, “378 responding religious institutes report a total of 55,942 associates, more than double the number reported in the 2000 study.”

CARA also said 94% of the associates renew their commitments, too. That wouldn’t surprise Connolly.

“The lay staff are there because they are committed to the spirit of that particular community and to the mission and ministry for that particular community,” Connolly said.

‘Life will go on, community will go on’

Sister Mary Bratrsovsky of the Benedictine Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Lisle resembles the traditional sister profile. Her Irish mother was one of 16 children; her father was one of eight; she herself was one of 15.

Nine family members went into religious life: six on her parents’ side and three from Bratrsovsky’s immediate family. Bratrsovsky said her aunts “prayed her” into the community. Bratrsovsky said she’s lived in the same building since 1962 and she’ll live in the same building until she dies.

The essence of religious life hasn’t changed, she said. “Do you want community? Do you want stability? Do you want a purposeful job description? Those are still here.”

A community’s needs may change but “life will go on, community will go on,” she said.

“Our legacy has been, and will continue to be, carrying on the mission of Jesus in a way that isn’t necessarily our way,” Bratrsovsky said. “But it is proudly embraced.”

‘Hope in collaboration’

Sister Judy Illig, a member of the U.S. leadership team for the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, said she was once told she’d be a wonderful mother. Instead, Illig, as a sister, has spent 24 years teaching math and science and working in administration in Arizona, California and Illinois. She spent 25 years working with the homeless in California and 13 months in refugee camps in Tanzania after the genocide working with Rwandan refugees.

She’s currently witnessing the consolidation of several branches of the IBVM. The motherhouse was sold in 2017 and several sisters are living with the Wheaton Franciscans. Although schools were closed, the Hispanic ministry on Chicago’s South side is flourishing, and Illig said she’s finding “hope in collaboration.”

“I’m very positive about the future of religious life, but it’s definitely going to be different,” Illig said. “We talk about transformation a lot.”

‘We are still changing the world’

Sister Joyce Shanabarger of the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Frankfort said she feels transformation is inevitable in ministry. Shanabarger said she became a sister 50 years ago and said she just “doesn’t buy into that” when people tell her “religious life is dying.”

“I think whatever is happening is God’s desire for us,” Shanabarger said.

With a smile, Shanabarger said more elderly nuns living at the motherhouse provides more opportunities for physical and occupational therapists. But she also pointed out that two sisters recently served at a migrant shelter in California and said that Franciscans “are still changing the world.”

“As the years go by, I realize God’s hand at work in my life. I want to do whatever it is God wants me to do,” Shanabarger said. “As a young person, I thought God wanted me to save the world. Now I know God wants the world to save me.”

‘I’m free to pack up and go where the need is’

Sister Jeanne Bessette, president of the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate in Joliet, said many women’s religious congregations today are “pretty self-determining” in terms of not assigning sisters certain ministries and homes.

“We just haven’t done that since probably 1968,” Bessette said.

Bessette said religious life actually brings great amounts of freedom in terms of personal and professional opportunities.

“In religious life, I’m free to pack up and go where the need is,” Bessette said. “I don’t have to sell a house and buy a house and move my family and negotiate a job for my spouse in the new place we would go. I’m free to respond when the Gospel and God calls. And that is something that motivated me and continues to hold me in religious life … to respond to the Gospel and know there is tremendous strength in doing it by side by side with others.”

—  “In religious life, I’m free to pack up and go where the need is,” Bessette said. “I don’t have to sell a house and buy a house and move my family and negotiate a job for my spouse in the new place we would go. I’m free to respond when the gospel and God calls." Sister Jeanne Bessette, president of the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate

At the same time, Bessette doesn’t view herself as “a privileged member of the church” because of her role. Bessette said she once was principal of a school of low-income teens in Ohio where 90% of her students had no ideas “what Sister Jeanne meant.” Instead the students’ love and respect for her came from her love and respect for them.

“I’m happy to identify myself as a sister. But it’s not the card I lead with,” Bessette said. “I don’t use it as a wedge between myself and another person.”

KNOW MORE

According to the National Religious Vocation Conference, most women’s communities “have at least one person in initial formation,” and those members tend to be highly educated, previously involved in parish life and more diverse, which reflects today’s U.S. Catholic population.

According to NRVC:

• Only 2% of female, never-married Catholics (about 250,000) have very seriously considered becoming a religious sister.

• Women who previously attended a Catholic primary school are three times more likely to consider become a religious sister than woman who did not attend a Catholic primary school.

• 39% of college students involved in Catholic campus ministry have seriously considered becoming a religious sister.

• 30% of women involved in diocesan young-adult ministry have seriously considered becoming a religious sister.