Shifting the Narrative of Women Religious

Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, Florida.

One’s perception is influenced by many factors. In a sociology class I took many years ago at the University of North Florida, I was struck by something the professor said. He stated that most people want the world to be like it was when they were 10 years old.

What is the narrative of Catholic women Religious in the United States? It certainly has changed since I was 10 years old.

Sister Mary Pellegrino, CSJ, a Sister of St. Joseph of Baden, Pennsylvania, gave a keynote address at the October national conference of Communicators for Women Religious held in Memphis that I was able to view recently. She is a past president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, currently on staff at Plante Moran, an international management consulting firm. Her talk was entitled, “From Strings to Yeast: Shifting the Narrative from Scarcity to Abundance.”

She began her address by saying that the current narrative about women Religious is that we are not young enough, and that there are too few of us. She called this the scarcity myth. She continued by sharing a graph entitled the Presence of Catholic Sisters in the U.S. from 1730 to the Present: Catalyzing Change, Humanizing Culture. Here are some of the highlights of that graph: Year: 1750 - # of Sisters in US: 14; Year: 1850 - # of Sisters in US: 900; Year: 1900 - # of Sisters in US: 50,000; Year: 1965 - # of Sisters in US: 180,000:Year:2000 - # of Sisters in US: 69,000; Year: 2019 - # of Sisters in US: 42,000.

North yard of Motherhouse in St. Augustine, FL.

U.S. history is a story, she said, of many peoples migrating to this country, mainly from Europe, also with slaves from Africa. The country was built on slave trade, low wages to immigrants, and, in the Catholic Church, mostly no wages to women Religious, who founded Catholic schools, hospitals, and social service institutions to serve the immigrant Church, said Sister Pellegrino. Just as monasteries were center of civilization in Europe in the Middle Ages, she felt Catholic Sisters were those who helped humanize U.S. culture since 1750.

If you have ever baked bread, you know that flour is the ingredient of critical mass, but that yeast is the critical ingredient to make it rise, to create something new and beautiful from that bowl of flour. Sister Pellegrino said she thinks that over the years women Religious in this country have developed significant relationships to influence change in our culture. Instead of a scarcity narrative about them, she said, there should be a narrative of abundance in the areas of moral credibility, influence, and social capital. Using numbers of women Religious is a fallacy, she said, if numbers are the only measurement. However, she noted, “Nothing in nature grows forever.”

From 1750 to 1965 was the proofing process for women Religious in the US, according to Sister Pellegrino. Yeast must be proofed, mixed, kneaded and immersed in the proper environment in order to be effective.

In order to humanize U.S. culture today, she felt we needed dialogue, respect, and the ability to live together with differences among us. How do we make this shift? Consciousness shifts differently - gradually first, and then, suddenly, she said.

As numbers of members diminish and median age rises among U.S. women Religious, many congregations are partnering with laity who share their mission and charism to ensure that some kind of legacy endures. At the beginning of this Advent season, let us reflect on how Catholic women Religious have made a difference, and continue to make a difference, in our U.S. culture.

Mandarin Schoolhouse in Jacksonville