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The Boom. The Maryknoll success story typifies but does not tell the whole story of monastic life in mid-20th century. From the time (circa 530) that a young Italian nobleman, Benedict of Nursia, smashed the statue of Apollo on Monte Cassino and founded his famed abbey, the monastery has been the heart of Christendom. Even after the Middle Ages monasteries continued to dominate religious life, provided much of the fire of reform within the Catholic Church. But with the 18th century the monastery was relegated to a dark corner. More devastating than the French Revolution's "freeing" of nuns and monks from their vows—more deadly than the guillotine that executed Carmelites and others who did not want to be freed—were the widespread notions that the monastic life was unnatural, unhealthy, a "waste." Today that view is drastically changing: the monastery has begun to recapture the world's imagination. It has dawned on the world that the robed nun, the cowled monk have a place in the Age of Fission.
There are now some 575,000 Roman Catholic nuns and sisters scattered around the globe. The majority are in "active" orders (mostly nursing and teaching). More and more are going into social work—in prisons, factories, among juvenile delinquents, in the limbo of Europe's D.P. camps.
In the U.S. the monastic boom is strongest. The number of women in religious orders in the U.S. today is 154,055, up more than three times from the year 1900. There are also 25,431 men (not counting diocesan priests) in orders, twice as many as in 1900.
The religious teach in 250 Catholic colleges, 1,536 diocesan and parochial high schools and 8,493 parochial elementary schools, treat more than 8,000,000 patients a year in 790 general hospitals. Among the principal women's orders:
¶ Sisters of Charity: founded by St. Vincent de Paul in France in 1633, they specialize in schools and hospitals, run a leprosarium in Louisiana, and number 8,000 in the U.S., 60,000 throughout the world.
¶ Dominican Sisters: founded in France in 1206, they maintain 30 independent congregations in the U.S. with 19,383 professed sisters, most of them teaching or caring for the orphaned and the aged.
¶ Sisters of the Order of Mercy: founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1831, they specialize in visiting the sick and imprisoned, managing hospitals and orphanages. U.S. membership: 5,236 professed sisters.
¶ Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondolet: founded in France in 1650, they teach schools, manage hospitals and charitable institutions. U.S. membership: 15,244 professed sisters.
¶ Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: founded in 1800 by St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, they specialize in teaching, maintain four vicariates (provinces) in the U.S. with 909 professed sisters.
In addition to the older orders, the U.S. has seen the growth of young and specialized congregations, e.g.:
¶ The Daughters of St. Paul Missionaries of the Catholic Press, who concentrate on propagation of the faith through press, screen and radio.
¶ The Medical Mission Sisters, founded 30 years ago by a woman physician, the majority of whose members are all M.D.s, nurses or medical technicians.