SYLVANIA, Ohio — Poverty. Chastity. Obedience.
For most of us in this day and age, the lifelong vow to abstain from sex, live with little, and obey the laws of the Catholic church seems archaic and too much to ask. But for a small special portion of women in our society, it is their way of life.
"They're actually freedoms," said Sister Jennifer Zimmerman of the Sisters of Notre Dame. "That fact that I'm not married means, if there's a need in Texas, I can be gone by this weekend. I don't have to worry about what my spouse, what my children are doing."
She continues. "By not owning a house, not owning a car, I don't have to worry about some of the things that most people in the world have to worry about financially."
It's a change of narrative, Zimmerman said. But in a world where the luxurious life of Kim Kardashian bombards our feeds, and Cardi B plays through our Tik Toks, it could be hard for millennials or Gen Z to grasp the sacrifice and sanctity of religious life without feeling constricted.
A study shows less than 1% of nuns in the United States are younger than 40, and the average age of a nun is 80. According to The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, there will be fewer than 1,000 nuns left in the United States by 2042.
"Those numbers don't worry me," said Sister Jenny. "I think of my community. We started with two women in 1850, and there's been thousands of us since then."
The Sisters of Saint Francis of Sylvania also started in the 1800s, but their order has seen the national decline of nuns within their own walls. There has not been a woman in her 20s who has joined the order since the 1980s the Sisters of Saint Francis tells WTOL 11. More so, the order is seeing on average five sisters die each year.
The combination of nuns dying of old age and the lack of young women signing up to replace them is putting that small portion of our society - women in religious life - at risk of being a thing of the past.
"When I think about when I entered over 50 years ago," said Sister Nancy Linenkugel of the Sisters of Saint Francis. "We were a workforce in the church. There were so many perishes and there were so many catholic schools. Look at today in the church. You've got parishes changing. Parishes are closing or consolidating."
Sister Nancy joined religious life when she was 19. Now at the age of 71 she has spent over half her life serving the Catholic Church and God.
Similar in age, and a part of the same order, is Sister Rachel Nijakowski. Sister Rachel joined religious life at the age of 14, right after her eighth-grade graduation.
"When I was beginning to enter religious life there were 500 of us in our community," Sister Rachel said. "The decline of religious life isn't so frightening to us because I think we know we are allowing our co-partners in ministry to carry on where we've left off."
The co-partners are women the sisters refer to as "associates." These women are professionals, have husbands and kids, yet work side by side with the sisters spread their message.
Yet, despite the odds, there are young women who are willing to take on fully the role of a nun. For instance, 28-year-old Kaitlin Morse is in the process of becoming a nun through the Sisters of Notre Dame. Morse considers herself a "cradle catholic", having gone to catholic school from kindergarten through 12th grade, yet took a step back from the faith in her college years and became a nurse.
"I was doing very good work, taking care of people," Morse said. "But there was something still missing. I couldn't figure it out. I tried the dating thing. That didn't work. Then finally after a lot of prayer I realized it was intentional service to others is what I was being called to."
"Called to." That is what all the sisters in this story say is at the heart of becoming a nun.
As Sister Nancy told WTOL, "It's not for everybody, but it's God who's doing the calling. Not us."
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