Last year, when the Vatican ordered a review of all the Roman Catholic women's religious orders in the United States, some nuns felt the inspection was an affront.In the Oct. 9 issue of a U.S. religious journal, a nun identified only as Sister X said the investigations amounted to bullying.
"One suspects that Rome's interventions will hardly promote vocations to women's religious communities," Sister X wrote.
But locally, many people in the Catholic Church are welcoming the chance to reflect on the state of the United States' vanishing sisters.
The strict-but-loving nun who taught Catholic school is a cherished American image. But chances are the adults who remember those nuns rarely encounter a sister in their church today. And chances are nearly as good that the nun who taught those adults in grade school is still in the classroom.
The numbers tell the story. Nationally, in 1965, there were 173,865 nuns working in the United States. By 2000, there were only 79,876, according to Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. In 1999, the average age of a member of a women's religious community was between 65 and 70.
In this area, the story is the same. Just 10 years ago in the Rockford Diocese, there were about 323 religious sisters serving in 11 counties, including Kane and most of Kendall. Today there are 165. Although specific numbers were not available, representatives from the Diocese of Joliet, which includes Bolingbrook, said they've seen similar trends.
"We pray every day for vocations. We do need them," said Sister Kathleen McLinden, who lives in a convent at St. Patrick's Residence, a nursing home and rehabilitation center in Naperville.
McLinden, 56, also works at St. Patrick's six days each week, helping residents with meals and activities such as exercise groups, coffee socials and daily Mass.
As for recruiting women to join the sisterhood, McLinden said that is one reason she still wears a habit.
"We're out there so people can see us and we can be a witness," she said.
This includes going to White Sox games, which McLinden and her fellow nuns do regularly.
"We've attended many of them, and we've been seen on TV," she said. "We got a lot of calls about it."
At one of the games this summer, a family with five girls came up to McLinden's group and asked where they were from.
"They said, 'We don't ever see sisters anymore,'" McLinden remembered. The youngest daughter, who was around 13, expressed interest in becoming a nun and told McLinden she would visit St. Patrick's.
McLinden has her own theories about why the number of nuns in the United States has dwindled.
"There is so much out there for (young women) that they feel they might not have the call," she said.
Not only have professional and educational opportunities expanded for women in recent decades but there are also other ways for women to serve within the Catholic Church.
"You don't have to be a sister to be a eucharistic minister, a lecturer, anymore," McLinden said.
McLinden took her vows in 1972. She first became involved by volunteering in a nursing home in Brooklyn, N.Y. She had been serving in upstate New York until being transferred to Naperville about a year ago.
Sister Margaret Anne Spagnola, a nun working in St. Anne's Parish in Oswego, was an unlikely candidate to become a nun.
At Mother of Sorrows High School in Blue Island, Spagnola was trying to figure out where she fit in. As a junior, her counselor had suggested the sisterhood.
"I said: Me?" she remembered. "It was the furthest thing from my mind."
Spagnola smoked and was a social butterfly. But she felt restless. She considered the Army; she liked the structure. But that counselor's suggestion kept nagging her.
At 17, Spagnola told her parents she was going to be a nun. They gave her their support.
Spagnola found peace in her new vocation. Rather than children or a husband, God was at the center of her life, and it was thrilling.
For 10 years, she taught elementary school, then moved to Providence High School in New Lenox where she taught theology for 16 years. Then the diocese moved her to St. Mary Immaculate in Plainfield and finally to St. Anne's five years ago.
Along the way, she watched as fewer and fewer young girls considered life as a nun. Rather than a sense of familiarity, she said kids are as likely to ask their parents why Spagnola is wearing a Halloween costume.
As part of her recruitment efforts, McLinden regularly visits vocational days at various schools. What does she advise young women who say they are considering becoming a nun?
"I would encourage them to pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance," she said.
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