Posted on 11/28/2005 6:26:59 AM PST by Knitting A Conundrum
Roman women are converts to convents
By Hilary Clarke in Rome
(Filed: 28/11/2005)
Growing numbers of educated Italian women are throwing away their high heels and lipstick and opting for the austere life of nuns in closed convents.
A surprising 550 women in Rome chose to withdraw to cloisters this year compared with 350 two years ago, it emerged at a conference organised by the Vicariate of Rome and Italy's Union of Mother Superiors (Usmi).
Most of the country's 7,500 cloistered nuns have traditionally come from regions such as the Marches, making the sudden rise in the city of la dolce vita even more surprising.
Until recently, most women entering closed convents in Rome were third world immigrants with little education. Now the recruits are all Italians with university degrees.
"They are realising that what the world has to offer to them is not all it is made out to be," said Sister Pieremilia Bertolin, the secretary general of Usmi.
"They are starting to reason with their heads and not just believing the messages advertising throws at them."
In the past, a cloistered life really meant cutting yourself off from your past and from the material world. Today, however, sisters can stay in touch with loved ones and the world at large via the telephone and the internet.
This is good news. God is calling these women, and hopefully He will call other men and women to marriage, family, and the proper upbringing of children.
Whenever I have visited Italy I have always been impressed by their love of children. Wherever we went with our own children, we always had a warm welcome. It's sad to think that the Italians were so seduced by the modern age that they ceased even to reproduce themselves.
Paradoxically, as some have already suggested on this thread, the calling of women into a cloistered life of poverty, obedience, and chastity may reflect a new turn toward God that will also result in a return to the family.
It's already happening with some orders. The ones who are growing are noted by their faithfulness to the church, being conservative theologically, the seriousness of their religious committment, and their wearing religious habits.
I do! I even run a mail list where that's all we do. Every two weeks I send out a group of prayers, so in a way, it's a perpetual novena to St. John Vianney and St. Benedict for vocations.
More to come, many more. A veritable explosion.
Makes sense.
"They are starting to reason with their heads and not just believing the messages advertising throws at them."
Good news!
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