[Mrs. Don-o]

It's absolutely true that the population of Catholic nuns/sisters in the USA has declined drastically: from about 180,000 in about 1965, to less than 50,000 now. But it's not due to any imagined paranoid "Nunquisition." The downturn began right after the Second Vatican Council (1963-65) when a lot of the congregations, in an attempt to get modern, ditched their historic Constitutions, the common prayer life, and their apostolates (their work which they usually shared as a congregation, like running a chain of parish schools, a University or a Hospital), and started more individualized lifestyles and "careers," leading to what I'd call centrifugal disintegration.

I lived and worked with the Benedictine Sisters of Erie for 11 years as a Lay Associate, and I saw it happen up close and personal.

They're not in trouble for "working with the poor" or "being voices for the voiceless" or "serving the underprivileged" or any such thing. Women were leaving the convents in droves decades before the Vatican thought starting some "Apostolic visitation" --- an inquiry to find out what the heck's going on. It's because they deliberately divested themselves of their religious and vocation and identity, and then, surprise, there was no real reason to stay.

The sisters who still wear recognizable religious garb, who pray together on a regular daily prayer schedule, and who do the work they were founded to do (whether it's educating the handicapped or running a nursing home or religious publishing, evangelization, media work) --- are growing like kudzu.

Same thing with men's religious orders: the modernists are in rapid decline, the newer orders ("new faithful") are growing.

Sinsinawa Dominicans, largely post-Christian, semi-secularist feminists, avg. age probably about 75
They'll cease to exist within 10 years.

Nashville Dominicans (Dominicans of St. Cecilia), vibrantly Catholic, avg. ag roughly about 25
They are brilliant, growing faster than they can build new living space, and the future is theirs.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I was taught by Dominican nuns all through grade school. Too bad I didn’t realize at the time how lucky I was.

[Vaquero]

The nuns that were my teachers in my Brionx NY parochial school were Dominican, from Blauvelt NY and the last one to be my teacher was in 1962. All wore full and very uncomfortable looking habits for the hot weather. There was no so called secular ‘humanists’ or secular feminists.

[Friendofgeorge]

That shows the difference between Godly Christian Woman VS Bitter Non Christian woman

Thank You very good...The short hair is a giveaway also

[SkyPilot]

I know nuns are supposed to be celibate, but these don't look like heterosexual women in any case.

[Heart-Rest]

Here's another example of an order of traditional nuns that is currently experiencing tremendous growth:

   "Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist - Ann Arbor, Michigan" - (expansion page)

   "Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist" - (main page)

(Those Sisters specifically request on their web page that their pictures there not be reused by others, so I urge you just to check their web site to see what they look like in their habits, and read about their impressive growth.)

[HurriKane]

Thank you for sharing about the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, IIRC this was home for Sr. Joan Chittister, years ago I attended her workshop on the Rule of Benedict, she was excellent, and I enjoyed her books/tapes on the Psalms, but IIRC she was silenced (?) at some point, and I’ve lost track of her, I guess I’m wondering if she contributed to the situation you describe in Erie...