Nuns a Dying Breed in the U.S.

Amid concerns about young people leaving the Church, another problem facing the Catholic church is a decline in nuns. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, there are currently under 50,000 religious Catholic sisters in the U.S., a 13 percent decline from 2010 and a 72 percent decline from 1965. Nuns are dying off and fewer young women are stepping in to replace them. As Time points out, part of the decline may come from the Vatican’s scrutiny of American nuns. Today’s nuns tend to be more progressive than the Vatican, which issued a crackdown on American nuns in 2012 …