Fewer Embrace Vows Of Committed Sisterhood

Unpublished correction: The name of Mukogawa is misspelled in this story.

Mary Medved’s decision to enter a convent would have been unremarkable 30 years ago. Women were joining religious orders in droves, like girls entering college sororities.

But when Medved took the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience last month, she became the first recruit for the Washington province of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary since 1982.

Medved, 39, will be the youngest of the 219 members in her order. Just under half are retirement age, although only 25 percent actually are retired from their jobs.

“In a lot of ways, this is a radical commitment these days,” said Sister Mary Rita Rohde, membership coordinator for the Washington province of the order, which is based in Spokane. “Especially when the future is so uncertain.”

Thirty years ago, before the Second Vatican Council, Catholic women who felt called to serve God had no choice but to become nuns, said Rohde. They had limited roles in church leadership.

Enrollment in women’s religious communities in the United States peaked in the early 1960s. In 1966, there were 174,000 sisters in the United States.

Vatican II gave women more options for serving God. They were encouraged to lead worship services and participate in church administration.

By 1990, there were 94,000 sisters. Last year, there were 90,000.

“The reality is, each of us that works has to support something like four people,” Medved said. “It’s a real concern I have to deal with.

“There’s pressure for somebody like me to go out and earn a good salary in order to support the group. Does that mean we don’t go into the places of greatest need, because those jobs don’t pay?”

Still, each year a handful of American women like Medved join a religious order.

Medved’s vows last month commit her to three years with the Sisters of Holy Names. When that period is over she will make her final vows.

While many friends and family are concerned she is joining an organization that won’t be there for her when she is old, Medved said she is confident “God will provide.”

She balances those concerns with the opportunities available in religious life. Already she has traveled to Brazil to work among the poor.

“In a lot of ways I feel like I have as many opportunities, if not more, to experience a broad sense of the world,” she said. “I have more freedom to do the kind of advocacy I see as my ministry.”

Raised in Portland, Medved’s connection to the religious order goes back to childhood. She grew up in a large Catholic family and was taught by the sisters from first grade through high school.

“The Sisters of the Holy Names have always been there for me,” she said. “They were always people that were very present and encouraging in my life.”

Her father was the physician to many of the sisters and made house calls to the convent on weekends. Medved went along and waited in the parlor.

“I was kind of mystified by their habits,” she said. “In fact, I often would cry when I would see them, because it scared me. I got over that.”

A high school teacher encouraged Medved to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., rather than stay in the Northwest for college.

That was during the Watergate era and Medved set her sights on becoming a lawyer who would fix the political system.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree, she postponed law school and signed up for a one-year stint with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps - a domestic version of the Peace Corps. That stretched into three years, and Medved later became a paid administrator. In between, she worked and lived in a Portland shelter for homeless women.

Working with some of the poorest people in America solidified Medved’s yearning to dedicate her life to social justice. It also enamored her to the idea of living among a community of people with similar goals.

“I have seen too many people burn out as they work for justice because they had no real support center from which their activism had come,” she said.

Medved quit her job and moved to Yakima to live with several Holy Names sisters, including Rohde. It was a trial run at living in a religious community.

“I could continue doing ministry without becoming a sister,” she said. “But it was time to set my life in a more permanent direction.”

In 1993, she became an official novice, a time devoted to the study and reflection on religious life. In all, her decision to make her vows took four years of study and prayer.

The Sisters of Holy Names is an order dedicated to education.

Vatican II instructed religious orders to examine their work and how it related to the needs of people in which they lived.

“Most orders were founded to serve the very poorest of society,” said Sister Margaret Cafferty, director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. “The sisters took the education and the skills that they had and began to apply them to a new population in the United States that had great needs.”

At Holy Names, the sisters broadened their definition of education. Instead of just teaching parochial students reading and writing, they help poor women and children make the most of their lives.

Their work takes them to places like Central America and Jonestown, Miss.

In Spokane, their work is varied. Sisters run a small art school and a music school, teach at Gonzaga and Eastern Washington universities, tutor Japanese women at Mukogowa Fort Wright, run the Women’s Drop-in Center and work in parishes and as hospital chaplains.

The diversity of their work was one of the attractions for Medved.

“They see education in a much broader sense,” she said. “They are educating people to realize their own potential, their sense of dignity.”

Like many other orders, Holy Names is increasing its numbers with an alternate form of membership. More than 70 men and women who want to share the order’s mission but choose not to live a vowed life, have become associate members.

The order also started a new program where women become vowed sisters for a few years. In some cases, it is a trial period for women considering a lifetime commitment.

“I think there’s a place for vowed religion in the world,” Rohde said. “We’re the ones who need to be the prophets and the leaders.”

On the cover of the program for her profession of vows, Medved quoted a Brazilian archbishop: “When I dream alone, it remains a dream. When I dream with others, it becomes a reality.”

It is a sentiment she hopes to pass on to the people she meets.

“I really see the task of youth and the young adult is for each person to figure out what their dream is for their life and for the world,” she said.

“But at a certain point in adulthood you have to make the decision: Who do you want to dream with? Because it isn’t very effective to dream alone.

“Even though the externals of religious life have changed, there is a common bond that anybody who feels called to religious life recognizes,” she said. “God’s love touches them and they want to do something about it.”

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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: NORTHWEST NUNS Women’s religious orders were instrumental in settling the Inland Northwest. Many came in the late 1800s to start schools, hospitals and orphanages. While they aren’t as visible, many orders still are very active in the area. While many sisters are retired or semi-retired, unless they are infirm they generally volunteer on a daily basis as tutors, counselors, communion ministers and for other work. Listed here are most of the orders, their local membership and the work they are doing: The Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, 40 members, 17 retired. Sisters work at schools, hospitals, parishes and other ministries. Earlier this year, the Dominican Sisters of Spokane folded and joined the Sinsinawa Dominicans. The Dominicans founded several of the hospitals in the Inland Northwest, including Holy Family Hospital. The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, 16 members, six retired. Sisters used to staff Marycliff High School for girls and St. Francis Xavier Grade School. Sisters still work in parishes, teaching and health care. The Sisters of the Holy Names, 219 members, 51 retired. Sisters teach students from elementary to college level. They work among impoverished communities in Walla Walla and Yakima. Sisters of Providence, 110 members, 40 retired. The order runs Sacred Heart Medical Center, where several members work. The order also runs St. Joseph Care Center nursing home. Others teach and work in parishes. Sisters of St. Francis (Philadelphia), 10 members, three retired. Members came to the Inland Northwest to create and staff St. Joseph’s and St. Ann’s orphanages. Now most members staff St. Joseph Family Care Center, a counseling center with a holistic approach. Members also include a Gonzaga University instructor and parish ministers. Sisters for Christian Community, two members. This order was founded in the 1970s in Portland. Unlike other orders, there is no mother house or convent. Instead, members live out their vowed lives and work in whatever ministry they choose. In Spokane, the two members work in parishes, jail ministry and volunteer with neighborhood policing organizations. Contemplative Orders: The Carmelite Sisters of Mary, two members. An order of hermits, the two sisters live in relative seclusion near Newport, Wash. The Monastery of St. Clare (Poor Clare Nuns), 10 members who live lives of simplicity and prayer. Unlike service orders, contemplative orders have maintained steady but small numbers over the last 30 years. Half of the 10 Spokane members are younger than age 45.