Catholic sisters and nuns in the United States

Catholic sisters and nuns in the United States have played a major role in American religion, education, nursing and social work since the early 19th century.

According to an article posted on CatholicPhilly.com, the website of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in October 2018, National Religious Retirement Office statistics showed that number as 47,160 in 2016, adding that “about 77 percent of women religious are older than 70.”[1] In March 2022, the NRRO was reporting statistics from 2018, citing the number of professed sisters as 45,100.

[2] The network of Catholic institutions provided high status lifetime careers as nuns in parochial schools, hospitals, and orphanages.

The controversial investigation, which was viewed by many U.S. Catholics as a "vexing and unjust inquisition of the sisters who ran the church's schools, hospitals and charities" was ultimately closed in 2015 in meeting with Pope Francis.

The Sisters arrived in the United States in September 1867 at the request of the Bishop of Buffalo, opening a school in Oswego, New York.

Textile manufacturing centers and other industrial towns such as Lewiston, Maine, Fall River, Massachusetts, Woonsocket, Rhode Island and Manchester, New Hampshire attracted significant French-Canadian populations.

[24] *estimate In the period before the American Civil War, it was common for anti-Catholic Protestants to sponsor semi-pornographic lectures by ex-Catholic nuns.

Ugly rumors spread to the effect that convents and nunneries were organized for the sexual pleasure of the male priests, with the corpses of dead babies buried underneath.

The press had a field day following the story, especially when it was discovered that the key reformer was using committee funds to pay for a prostitute in Boston.

In the 19th century the women generally saw the religious role as paramount, with their service to God expressed through their nursing or teaching or other activities.

He reached the Hispanic, Irish, German and Polish children by bringing in the Ursuline teaching order of sisters and the Missionary Oblate priests of Mary Immaculate.

In November of that year, the committee of sisters in the U.S. called a meeting in Chicago of general and provincial superiors of pontifical communities to consider the formation of a national conference.

They voted unanimously to establish the Conference of Major Superiors of Women (CMSW) to "promote the spiritual welfare" of the country's women religious, "ensure increasing effectiveness of their apostolate," and "foster closer fraternal cooperation with all religious of the United States, the hierarchy, the clergy, and Catholic associations.

As of 2015[update], the conference includes over 1500 members, encompassing approximately 80 percent of the 57,000 women religious in the United States.

The conference describes its charter as assisting its members to "collaboratively carry out their service of leadership to further the mission of the Gospel in today's world."

The canonically-approved organization collaborates in the Catholic church and in society to "influence systemic change, studying significant trends and issues within the church and society, utilizing our corporate voice in solidarity with people who experience any form of violence or oppression, and creating and offering resource materials on religious leadership skills."