Mary Zeiss Stange on American Nuns: Not your parents’ Sisters

Posted by Kendall Harmon

How do you know a Roman Catholic nun when you see one? It used to be easy. They wore long black habits and veils with confining headgear, traveled in pairs, were teachers or nurses, and lived quietly in convents. There was a timelessness about them: the essentials of their way of living had remained unaltered for centuries.

Then came the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), with its mandate to bring the church — nuns and all — into the 20th century. Shortly thereafter, the Dominican Sisters at my school, St. Mary's in Rutherford, N.J., took the plunge and modernized their garb. But otherwise, they still conformed to the traditional model, living in community and teaching primary and secondary school.

Their change of habits was but a baby step toward much broader subsequent changes for Catholic nuns. And the church's current response to these changes suggests how resolutely clueless the hierarchy remains when it comes to what these religious women are up to, and how the changes in the realities of their dedicated lives mirror changes for women in American society at large.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Women • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

8 Comments
Posted August 31, 2009 at 11:25 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Words Matter wrote:

A remarkably ignorant, ill-informed piece. Shouldn’t opinion be based on facts?  Time doesn’t permit the fisking Stange deserves.

August 31, 12:06 pm | [comment link]
2. Knapsack wrote:

Click on the piece, though, to see the fascinatingly unconscious irony of the graphic . . . at least, it looks that way to me.

August 31, 12:13 pm | [comment link]
3. FenelonSpoke wrote:

I guess Dr. Stange is unaware that some of the orders experiencing the biggest growth are those that have traditional habits and are cloistered.
I recommend the blog site"The Anchoress”  which is by a conservative Catholic laywoman,  and the site has some lovely photos and commentary about new sisters in contemplative orders. You just need to scroll down a bit:

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/

August 31, 12:44 pm | [comment link]
4. austin wrote:

There are few “muftis” more immediately recognizable than that of the progressive nun.  It is a maliciously amusing pastime to greet grim elderly women in bulky suits and sensible shoes as “Sister” and observe the level of annoyance when they note they have been rumbled.  More than one has asked me, “How did you know?”
“Force of habit.”

August 31, 2:50 pm | [comment link]
5. Alta Californian wrote:

For one, Stange seems to forget that Catholic seminaries were thoroughly investigated by the Vatican in 2006 in the wake of the abuse scandals.  So in a way the hierarchy HAS been checking on men in ordained ministry as well.  I do think that if they are investigating women religious they should look at male orders as well.

Secondly, as a friend of mine likes to say, people are always surprised and shocked when the Catholic Church states what it really believes, and (I would add) when it expects its clergy and members to own up to the vows they have taken and the creeds they recite.  But then, it is a hard thing for us all to truly live up to those.

Our culture likes the narrative of the free-spirit striving against the oppressive institution.  It is much harder for it to understand the leaders of a community calling on its members to actually honor the promises they have made.

August 31, 4:04 pm | [comment link]
6. Laura R. wrote:

Stange’s article definitely seems biased to me.  Words Matter #1, I’d be very interested in your fisk.  Austin #4, you are so right about the progressive nuns’ outfits.  I was fascinated to see, looking at the website for Mother Angelica’s community, that she and the sisters there have evidently returned to the habit she wore as a young nun (very pre-Vatican II).

August 31, 4:58 pm | [comment link]
7. Laura R. wrote:

I ought to have said that Mother Angelica is the foundress of EWTN.

August 31, 8:43 pm | [comment link]
8. Words Matter wrote:

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/2009/08/27/nun-news-roundup/

Another take on nuns.

September 1, 12:49 am | [comment link]
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