The latest statistics on the Catholic Church in this country contain good news and bad news. The good news is that the total Catholic population has increased by 7 million in the last decade, to a total of 65 million. The bad news is that in the same decade, the numbers of priests, sisters and brothers in religious orders has decreased considerably. Priests in religious orders now number around 15,250, down 2,745 in 10 years. (Diocesan priests, who are not members of religious orders, now number about 30,430, down about 4,000.) Sisters number about 75,500, down from close to 100,000. Brothers number 5,690, a thousand fewer than 10 years ago. And these religious are graying, with the average age of the men being about 63 and the women hovering around 70.

Catholics should be concerned about these numbers because the very witness of men and women who have dedicated their lives to God is such a gift to us and to the Church. Also of concern is the great loss to the Church of the ministries traditionally performed by religious orders, which historically have served the neediest members of society through their institutions — institutions that also are disappearing. For example, there are 200 fewer Catholic hospitals today than in 1965, when the Second Vatican Council closed. We have lost 4,000 Catholic grade schools and 1,100 Catholic high schools since 1965.

Naturally, this decrease in numbers of priests, sisters and brothers in religious orders has evoked a great deal of discussion, and theories abound as to why young people are not entering religious orders in greater numbers. Some suggest that young people are too self-centered, too materialistic, unable to make a lifetime commitment. Others suggest that parents have failed to pass on the faith adequately, failed to encourage their children to consider vocations to religious life.

As the mother of three young adults, I admit that parents of my generation have not promoted vocations among our post-Vatican II children with the same enthusiasm our own parents expressed. However, as a veteran journalist in the Catholic press, I also know that we parents are only part of the story. I propose that it is time for religious orders to consider that they, themselves, are partly responsible for their own dwindling numbers.

This is a controversial proposition, and certainly it does not hold true for all religious orders (and not for the diocesan priesthood). However, I argue that most of the highprofile religious orders have transformed themselves into entities that do not attract young people because of the following characteristics:

MANY RELIGIOUS ORDERS LACK COMMUNAL IDENTITY

The documents of Vatican II and subsequent Church documents, as well as the Code of Canon Law, detail certain elements that distinguish religious orders from lay groups. These elements include: taking public vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; living together in community and sharing prayer, work, meals, leisure, and a common spirit; putting all salaries in common as belonging to the community; observing obedience to a superior and the pope; and wearing some sort of religious garb that distinguishes the vowed religious person from laity.

However, instead of updating and renewing as mandated by the Second Vatican Council, many religious orders transformed themselves into entities that resemble secular organizations more than consecrated communities in the service of the Church. As a result, many religious men and women live away from their communities, either alone or in self-selected small groups of two or three. Some religious perform their ministries as individuals rather than in the name of the Church, and some apparently refuse to work in the institutions sponsored by their orders. Some use their salaries to support a life-style comparable to that of lay professionals, and a good number relate only remotely and occasionally to their religious communities.

Such religious men and women apparently are good people doing good works, but many religious lead lives that are indistinguishable from those of dedicated lay people who also do good works.

MANY RELIGIOUS ARE AT ODDS WITH THE CHURCH

The palpable anger toward the Church expressed by some men and women religious is confusing to young people and alarming to parents. Young people do not remember the Church before the Second Vatican Council. They do not wish to rehash debates over the influence of the curia or the “spirit of the council,” although many of them are quite open to reading the documents of Vatican II. They do not want religious orders to return to the old days when meaningless rules oppressed men and women religious, and iron-fisted superiors ruled like dictators.

However, young people and their parents do expect religious orders to have strong ties to the institutional Church and to act in the name of the Church. Therefore it is distressing when the most vocal groups criticizing the Church often are led by priest or sister members of religious orders who apparently act with impunity. What parent would encourage her daughter to enter a religious order in which some sisters refuse to attend Mass because they are so pained by the all-male priesthood? How should parents and their sons view the priesthood when some priests spend more time complaining about the difficulties of living a celibate life than talking about their joys and rewards of their vocation?

Parents worry about the atmosphere in religious orders that promote liturgical practices clearly prohibited by the Church, such as non-ordained persons proclaiming the Gospel and preaching the homily. Parents wonder why some religious insist on altering Scripture and creating feminist versions of the Liturgy of the Hours rather than praying the authorized Divine Office. Many lay Catholics also wonder why some orders have stripped their chapels of religious symbols and turned them into multipurpose meeting rooms. We worry that many elderly religious seem disenfranchised by their orders and feel that their communities no longer resemble the entities to which they originally committed themselves.

Additionally, many lay people believe that men or women religious who represent themselves as vowed religious but do not accept the Church’s teachings are dishonest at worst, inconsistent at best, and definitely a deterrent to new vocations. As Jesuit Father John M. McDermott observed: “If we are going to criticize the hierarchical Church’s teachings and practice — and rather ineffectually, it seems — it will be hard to persuade young people to sacrifice their lives in poverty, chastity and obedience for that Church. If we continue to insist on exceptions to moral norms, can we wonder if permanent vows are not considered binding?” (National Jesuit News, January 2003.)

RELIGIOUS DO NOT KNOW WHO THEY ARE

Many religious orders seem confused about who they are and why they exist, yet they still ask young people to devote their lives to this nebulous entity. The most comprehensive study of religious orders ever done in this country, “Future of Religious Orders in the United States” (Origins, Sept. 24, 1992), found that “a significant percentage of religious no longer understand their role and function in the Church.”

Further, the study found that the schools, hospitals and institutions run by religious orders, in addition to providing crucial social services to society, also provided a locus of corporate identity for the order. People knew the religious as “hospital sisters” or “teaching brothers.” This identity now is lost, as more orders have withdrawn from sponsoring such institutions, and their members have found employment in diverse professions and locations.

RELIGIOUS HAVE BECOME INVISIBLE

Lay Catholics valued and cherished the priests, sisters and brothers who served in Catholic institutions, and previous generations of Catholic parents often interacted with religious in these institutions and esteemed them as positive role models for their children. These religious were, in effect, walking vocations campaigns. But many of today’s Catholics simply never encounter men or women religious. Or, even if they do encounter them, they do not recognize them as religious because they wear no identifying garb. Hence, the smaller number of visible role models means fewer vocations.

To further complicate the picture, some religious say they are experimenting with creating new forms of religious life, stretching the canonical norms as they do so. For example, the Sisters of Loretto have integrated socalled lay co-members into leadership and decisionmaking roles to the point where they are indistinguishable from vowed sisters. With such ongoing experimentation, how can a religious order expect to attract new candidates looking for a vowed lifetime commitment, when the order itself is a work in progress, and prospective members have no idea of what it will look like once the experimentation ends? How can potential candidates even be certain that an order engaged in broad experimentation will retain its canonical recognition by the Church as a religious institute?

SOME ORDERS APPEAR ELITIST

Religious orders usually claim to be inclusive, but many orders appear very homogeneous and even unwelcoming to new candidates who may look, think, or act differently from the majority of their members. Lay people thus may legitimately wonder if religious orders have become too closed, too elitist, lacking intellectual and cultural diversity. Many orders no longer seem to value the devout brother or sister who does not have the interest or ability to pursue higher education but nevertheless desires to be a member of a prayerful community and would serve by performing domestic work, farming, sewing, nursing the elderly, or supporting office staff. Lay Catholics perceive an attitude among some religious that such work is beneath their dignity and should be performed only by more expendable lay workers. We wonder if religious orders today would welcome a humble but holy person like Venerable Solanus Casey, the Capuchin priest who touched so many lives as doorkeeper at his monastery.

RELIGIOUS ORDERS SEEM FINANCIALLY IRRESPONSIBLE

The financial practices of some religious orders often seem perplexing and inconsistent to lay people who work diligently to support their families. Legitimate questions arise about why religious men and women are released by their orders to spend months, even years, “discerning” their futures when the order is financially strapped and understaffed. People question why religious orders financially support members who never hold a job but rather are professional students, spending years accumulating multiple advanced degrees apparently for their own satisfaction rather than for application in an apostolate of the order. People wonder how religious leaders can justify spending thousands of dollars traveling around the globe for sabbaticals, conferences, or “fact-finding” and “goodwill” trips. We wonder why religious are allowed, indeed encouraged, to seek outside employment when similar job openings exist within their own congregations or institutions. We wonder why some religious make a career out of political or ecological protest when catechists and teachers and counselors and healthcare providers are so badly needed in Catholic institutions.

Lay people note the inconsistency of closing Catholic institutions and stopping needed services because of lack of staff while sisters, brothers and priests take jobs in the secular workforce. People wonder why orders support members in private houses and apartments when rooms in convents, rectories, and religious houses are available. We wonder why some orders continually try to create new ministries when they can barely handle the ministries they already have. We wonder how religious can honestly claim to be counter-cultural and concerned for the poor when some of them embrace the trappings of the secular culture.

MANY RELIGIOUS ORDERS HAVE AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Although there are no guarantees in life, it is reasonable for a person entering a religious order to have some expectation that the order will remain in existence, particularly when the candidate is asked to forsake her own possessions and depend on the order for her future sustenance. But what future can a young person expect in an order that has sold, or plans to sell, its provincial houses, schools, and medical facilities? What hope is there for a young person’s future in an order that has closed its infirmaries and placed its elderly brothers and sisters in secular nursing homes? Can our young people expect to be cared for in their old age by orders that plaintively beg for funds to support their aging members, even while the same orders give money to outside charities that may be worthwhile but are totally unrelated to religious life or the Catholic Church?

RELIGIOUS LEADERS ARE IN A STATE OF DENIAL

And yet the leaders of many religious orders appear to be in a state of denial, unwilling to critically evaluate what mistakes might have been made and what changes ought to be considered. They appear to resist repeated calls from the pope and Vatican officials to follow Church guidelines to live and pray in common and practice their shared apostolate in the name of the Church. And then they seek to blame the culture or families for the lack of vocations.

One might argue that a faithful person should put her future in the hands of God, and indeed, most devout Catholics are willing to do just that. What many young people resist is placing their futures in the hands of religious superiors who do not have an impressive track record for making good decisions for their orders since the Second Vatican Council asked religious orders to renew themselves.

YOUNG PEOPLE EXPECT HONESTY

Today’s young people have their faults, as do their parents, but on the whole, this generation of young adults is generous, spiritually hungry, seeking truth, and longing for community. Like previous generations, some young people today desire to answer the universal call to holiness

Today’s young men and women also are a cynical, “show me” generation, looking for the reality beyond the rhetoric, platitudes and religious jargon. They are turned off by people who talk the talk without walking the walk. This is not to say that all religious orders should be alike, for certainly each must maintain its own particular spiritual gifts that shape its approach to the vows, community life, prayer,mission, and ministry. Neither should religious orders limit themselves to traditional apostolates.

However, religious orders do need to convey the message that they are much more than just well-intentioned social-service organizations that support the individual good works of their members. When lay Catholics perceive that religious orders are God-centered communities that enthusiastically act in the name of the Church, young people will be anxious to join them. Then, we parents will encourage — indeed celebrate — religious vocations among our children.