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I just don’t know. One of my friends had a religious brother of the Marianist order who lived next door to her. He was an attorney. When her husband left her with extreme prejudice - things like having the power to the house turned off without telling her - the Brother represented her in the divorce at a very modest fee. How could they not understand all the realities of married life?

Our Sister Veronica came from a family of 10 children; she was 8th or 9th, and their father died before she was 10. Before she went into the convent, she saw not only her parents’ life but her older siblings’ marriages. We could just sit trading stories for hours, until finally, “I have another appointment, Cynthia.” “Oh, shoot, Sister, I think Tom’s making lunch at home!”

They don’t have infant oblates any more. Everyone is in real life.

That must be it. We are still paying for the convent and seminary schools of old. I know the priests I've know through the years are pretty normal people. Like you said, they have parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, friends who have kids. They don't live in a pod.

IIRC, and I do, one of the reasons the sisters dropped the habit, was they felt that people did not approach them as people.