Women in the vanishing cloister.

Helen R. F. Ebaugh

Women in the Vanishing Cloister 

Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1993; 191 pages; $35 (US) cloth, $ 15 (US) paper

Ebaugh is a sociologist at the University of Houston who has written previously about nuns leaving religious life and is now writing about religious communities going out of existence. She looks at the matter from a sociologist's point of view. Sociologists today are studying businesses that downsize or go bankrupt or cease operation.

Though concerned with the phenomenon of the large communities in the United States (which, she thinks, are probably all on the road to extinction), she has also conducted a survey of one community which has dropped from 703 members in 1950 to 432 in 1990. The author contends that this community is quite typical.

She attributes the changes in women's communities to six social factors: expanding opportunities for women, feminist ideology, some recommendations of Vatican II, the declining birth rate, changes in government registration and insurance, and accreditation by professional associations.

Next she shows specifically how these six factors have led to eight structural changes in women's religious communities: a democratic authority structure, an opening of the cloister, the loss of traditional "niches" such as schools and hospitals, opportunities for working in parishes, higher educational requirements, changes in communities' finances, changes in the vow of poverty, and feminism in religious communities.

She next shows in detail how these eight structural changes have brought about three further structural changes: occupational diversity, changes in recruitment, and defections from communities. All this has resulted in a loss of mission and purpose, and a rising median age of members, which two things will, the author thinks, culminate in the demise of religious orders in the United States.

Reasons for remaining

Many religious are only conditional members of their communities at the present time, especially those who live alone or in small groups and who have their own job outside their community. Ebaugh interviewed several of these. When asked why they stayed, they all answered in this or in a similar manner: "The order is my family, we have a history together. It is home, family, friends, bonds of solidarity. I like the people here and share meaning with them. However, if the order regresses and we begin clamping down on what we can do or where. we can live, I will leave. But we are not doing that. The administration pretty much leaves us alone and lets us direct our own lives. But if I get my budget cut or am told I have to live with five or six other people, I will leave."

These sisters also find that they can use the community: "The congregation gives me a credibility that I like in the work I do. My work is Church-based and being a sister is an asset."

Money a source of trouble

Not so long ago, sisters left because of problems connected with authority or with celibacy. Now the chief reason has to do with finances, and therefore with living or not living the vow of poverty.

Many members of the community studied are living outside a house of their community, thus increasing the community's costs, arid yet the community receives money from the special collections taken up in the United States for nuns in need.

As regards finances, Ebaugh says that the literature dealing with any kind of community shows that, "when members begin to earn money individually and work on the basis of individual contracts rather than group commitments, altruism tends to disintegrate, and invidious comparisons among members become common."

As regards obedience, for members who have their own careers, "survival of the order is no longer a major concern. More important is the sense that one's own meaningful work contributes to the Church and to the modem world."

These sisters are at peace with the knowledge that they will die out. To achieve this peace they have two rationalizations: (1) perhaps religious communities have done their work and are no longer needed; (2) the lay people associated with these communities will carry on the work.

Comment

As for the first of these points, I would contend that good religious communities of women are needed as much as they ever were. No doubt the point is well taken that communities like these are of little value to the Church. As for the second point, Ebaugh says more than once that the lay association will die with the community with which it is associated.

These communities are filled with a radical feminism, based on the realization (a resentment?) that the sisters cannot become priests and advance to the positions of authority which priests have.

One weakness of this book is that it seems unaware of the many smaller communities of sisters which have sprung up in recent years, or some older communities which have remained fully faithful to the Church's teaching. These communities will continue to grow because they are avoiding the causes which are killing off the others.

Fr. Leonard Kennedy is a priest of the Congregation of St. Basil (C.S.B.) and a frequent contributor to Catholic Insight.