Declining Institutional Sponsorship and Religious Orders: A Study of Reverse Impacts

Sociology of Religion, Fall, 2000 by Patricia Wittberg

Patricia Wittberg [*]

In recent decades, Catholic religious orders have largely withdrawn from an active presence in the day-to-day operations of their sponsored institutions. Recent mergers have similarly reduced their presence at administrative and board levels. While many studies have investigated the impact of this reduced presence on religious colleges, hospitals, and social agencies, few if any have studied the impact on the sponsoring orders themselves. The present paper uses a series of thirty extended, taped interviews to explore the implications of reduced or eliminated institutional presence on the internal functioning, group identity, and spirituality of two communities of Catholic sisters. Some tentative implications are suggested for further research in other denominations.

Of all the various religious denominations in the United States, the Roman Catholic Church has been the most likely to deliver education, social service, and health care through an extensive network of institutions (Starr 1982: 144; Qates 1995: 53). Traditionally, the majority of these have been staffed and administered by religious orders of women. [1] To a large extent, the sisters' communities had been uniquely defined by their provision of these institutional services.

Today, however, most Catholic hospitals, schools, and social agencies have few or no sisters working in them, either in line or in administrative staff positions. In many cases, even the boards of directors for these institutions are predominantly lay. The sisters have become, as one writer noted, "nearly invisible" in institutions where once they had been a dominant presence (Gottemoeller 1991: 564).

To date, research has focused primarily on the impact of the sisters' withdrawal on the institutions they had once staffed. Few, if any studies have considered the effect of this separation on the sponsoring religious group. It is probable, however, that religious sponsors have been at least as profoundly changed by withdrawing from their sponsored institutions as the institutions themselves have been changed by their absence. If the orders no longer sponsor and operate service ministries, why should they exist at all? In what way is sponsoring, administering, or working in these institutions still considered an appropriate religious activity for their orders? What effects wilt withdrawing from the institutions have on the internal dynamics of the order -- on the sources of its new members, the background of its leaders, the job security of its wage earners?

The identity of Catholic religious orders was once intimatety connected to the provision of education, health care, and social services. As their schools, hospitals, and social service agencies grew, however, the role of the sisters changed from providing these services, to administering others who provided them, and finally to controlling, through their board presence, those who administered the provision of the services. Mere board membership, however, is often an insufficient vehicle for maintaining commitment to the institution among the order's rank and file. As a result, many members have lost interest in performing any kind of institutional ministry at all (e.g., Moylan 1993: 175; Ebaugh 1993: 101; Sanders 1988: 24). Instead, many sisters now enter or remain in their order because it fosters their own personal and spiritual development, rather than to participate in a common apostolate (Ebaugh 1993: 101). Numerous studies have found that the connection between the sisters' more personalized vocation a nd their ministerial service activities was diminished as a result (Nygren and Ukeritis 1993: 151; see also Ebaugh 1993: 87).

Not only may the identity and purpose of a religious order change as it loosens its ties to its former institutions, its internal functioning may change as well. Future leaders of the religious orders, coming from non-institutional backgrounds, may show different priorities in their decision making. Without the assurance of being rehired in their own institutions, sisters may be less willing to interrupt their professional careers in order to serve in the community's leadership. A community may lose access to some of its most capable potential leaders because they cannot interrupt their careers without losing them altogether.

METHODOLOGY

In 1995, I conducted six preliminary interviews with sisters from several different religious communities, all of whom were involved in the administration of their orders' colleges, hospitals, or social service agencies. Based on the issues raised in this initial research, I subsequently conducted, in the fall and winter of 1997, twenty-five additional interviews with present and former sister administrators in two other communities, neither of which had participated in the preliminary study. These two communities were selected on the basis of the type of relationship which they had attempted to maintain with their sponsored institutions. In other ways, however, they were similar. Community A is a regional province within an international religious order, and has traditionally staffed and administered grade and high schools, hospitals, orphanages, settlement houses, and day care centers throughout the North Central and Southern United States. Formerly, the community also owned and operated a small college. T his order has attempted to sustain a strong administrative presence in its institutions. Community B, also an autonomous province in an international order, once operated a similar range of social service, health care, and educational institutions. Recently, however, Community B has withdrawn from most of them. It still continues to maintain a presence on the boards of its college and its hospital system, both of which are run by lay administrators. Other works, such as residential centers for troubled youth, nursing homes, and high schools, have either been closed or transferred to other ownership and management.