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Such breakaway groups sometimes shrink or dissolve without a sustaining structure. The Faith Community in St. Louis, which has ties to the S.F.C.C., began with 26 members five years ago, now has seven—yet those are thriving. The sisters, says Spokeswoman Nancy Brossette, found that what they had was not so much a common goal as a common enemy—lack of money, planning and knowledge about how to make it on the outside. Many new nuns share this "reentry" problem. As one former Dominican puts it:
"At first you feel like Henry Adams—between one world that's dead and another that's powerless to be born. But there's also an exhilarating feeling of being on the brink of a new adventure." Some experimental groups disperse because their members opt for marriage or careers as secular single women. Despite the attrition, there are now at least 50 noncanonical nuns' groups, ranging in membership from three to nearly 300.
Many American nuns have been able to update their life-styles without leaving their orders. Perhaps the most successful are the Sisters of Loretto. Under the leadership of their former mother general, Sister Luke Tobin (the only American nun to attend Vatican II), the Loretto community became the prototype for renewal in American sisterhoods. The Loretto nuns were among the first in the U.S. to modernize their convent schedule and dress—the habit is often exchanged for the civilian garb appropriate to their work—and branch out into professions other than the teaching, nursing or running of orphanages and old-age homes usually associated with sisters. In 1965, a Loretto nun became a full-time executive in the Job Corps. Today some members counsel conscientious objectors and drug addicts, and one advises the Denver city council on public housing.
Like the independent Immaculate Heart Community, the Loretto nuns have broadened their definition of community to include men and married couples as well as non-Catholics. But since the Lorettos are still under the authority of Rome, these lay people, called "co-members," take no vows and thus are not officially part of the congregation. The sisters no longer make vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the old formula, but write their own expressions of dedication, which retain the essence of all three vows. "Poverty," says Sister Luke, "should mean detachment, not dependence. Obedience should be to the needs of people, and to the community, not just to superiors."