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Bishops given 'sober' report on religious orders, with signs of hope
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BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Religious orders may be shrinking in size and their members aging fast, but a study of their newest members offers signs for hope, Holy Cross Brother Paul Bednarczyk, executive director of the National Religious Vocations Conference, said in a Nov. 18 report to the U.S. bishops on a study released this summer. Brother Bednarczyk called the results of the "Recent Vocations to Religious Life" study conducted for the vocations conference by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University "sobering." At the same time he emphasized that the responses to the survey engender great hope for the future of religious life. "Our study has confirmed that part of the richness of religious life lies in its diversity of charisms, lifestyles and ministries that have always been a hallmark of religious institutes in this country," he told the bishops, gathered in Baltimore for their fall general assembly. Brother Bednarczyk said the study found the number of men and women in religious life has decreased by 63 percent since the peak in the mid-1960s and that about 75 percent of the men and more than 90 percent of women religious are age 60 or older.
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