As US nuns age, more congregations turn to pontifical commissaries
July 20, 2026
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CWN Editor's Note: Because of declining vocations, at least 20 women’s religious institutes in the United States are now led by Vatican-appointed commissaries who belong to other communities.
Sister Dawn Tomaszewski, superior of the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, is also commissary for the Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters. She “said one of the great joys of the commissary process is that the receiving congregation gets to retain its identity until the last member dies,” according to the Global Sisters Project of the National Catholic Reporter. “This avoids the pain of being subsumed in a merger or the complexities of a covenant relationship.”
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