Nuns who administer hospitals are ‘a dying breed’
August 22, 2011
The New York Times notes that the lack of vocations in many US women’s religious communities has left most Catholic hospitals without religious leadership. “In 1968, nuns or priests served as chief executives of 770 of the country’s 796 Catholic hospitals,” the Times reports. “Today, they preside over eight of 636 hospitals.”
One nun, recently retired from hospital administration, notes that her order (the Franciscan Sisters of Mary) has decided to stop seeking new vocations.
“It was painful,” she said, “but I think it was also courageous to say we’re just not going to recruit any more. Let’s just live out the rest of our lives to the fullest that we possibly can and thank God for what we’ve been able to do. And when the time comes, as they say, the last person turn the lights out.”
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