Well ...
Although the number of religious sisters in the United States has plunged since the 1960s, resulting in an average age of about 70, there has been an increase in recent years among traditional, habit-wearing orders, including the Nashville-based Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, which has 226 members and a median age of 35. It recently raised $46 million to expand its chapel because the sisters were spilling into the hall.The more traditional orders are growing. Today. In 2007.
Just looking at all the young women Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia's web site is an odd experience. I suppose I never expected to see young nuns again.
Time magazine reported on this phenomenon a year ago.
And although the extreme conservatism of a nun's life may seem wholly countercultural for young American women today, that is exactly what attracts many of them, say experts and the women themselves. "Religious life itself is a radical choice," says Brother Paul Bednarczyk, executive director of the National Religious Vocation Conference in Chicago. "In an age where our primary secular values are sex, power and money, for someone to choose chastity, obedience and poverty is a radical statement."Maybe there was something to all the traditions that were tossed aside during the 1960s. Maybe.
