Nuns in the U.S. Are Facing Scrutiny by the Vatican
James Estrin/The New York Times
Mother Mary Clare Millea has been appointed by the Vatican to study the activities of some orders of nuns in the United States.
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: July 1, 2009
The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.
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Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Sister Sandra M. Schneiders has urged fellow nuns not to participate in the study that is being conducted by the Vatican.
Nuns were the often-unsung workers who helped build the Roman Catholic Church in this country, planting schools and hospitals and keeping parishes humming. But for the last three decades, their numbers have been declining — to 60,000 today from 180,000 in 1965.
While some nuns say they are grateful that the Vatican is finally paying attention to their dwindling communities, many fear that the real motivation is to reel in American nuns who have reinterpreted their calling for the modern world.
In the last four decades since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, many American nuns stopped wearing religious habits, left convents to live independently and went into new lines of work: academia and other professions, social and political advocacy and grass-roots organizations that serve the poor or promote spirituality. A few nuns have also been active in organizations that advocate changes in the church like ordaining women and married men as priests.
