Navigating the nun network

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 25, 2005 by Ginny Cunningham

I work for nuns. That wasn't part of the plan when I moved from Pittsburgh to Manhattan, but when I lost my third sublet I gave up on whatever it was I thought that city would be for me. I resigned from the Catholic New York newsroom where I'd worked as an assistant editor and I departed for Washington and a communications position with the fledgling Institute of Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, which was creating a national office to serve its 25 realigned regional communities.

Dorothy at the next desk warned me, "Nuns are different." What did I know?

Despite an early curiosity about life behind the locked double doors where the convent intersected with my elementary school, I was blissfully ignorant about nun life. But the job description won me over. The position was based in the nation's capital; gave me considerable autonomy, as well as responsibility and the chance for wide-ranging travel.

More than a few years have passed and I-can now confirm that Dorothy was right. There were many days and nights that I rafted against the difficulty of adapting to nun culture. Basically, I had no life. The nuns not only did triple duty--holding down jobs, ministering to the needy, and maintaining homes or convents for themselves and their elderly sisters--they were also committed to a pretty serious prayer schedule. What this meant for me was a lot of work on weekends and holidays, the only times you could gather the quorum of the nuns you needed for decisionmaking. Each time I drew up a plan for sightseeing or socializing in D.C., the nuns scheduled a meeting in Vermont or Colorado.

But those women--the Mercys and those who came later--laid a claim on my life.

After three years, I left Washington and set up my own writing and communications consulting business in Pittsburgh. But I still managed Mercy projects, and added others--Franciscan Projects, Holy Family projects, Divine Providence, Benedictine, St. Joes, Charities, Oblates, Carmelites, Poor Clares, Notre Dames, etc., etc., etc.

I became intrigued by the fact that, yes, we're all trained to do the networking thing, but I'd never--not during a single reception/business meeting/cocktail hour/networking session--encountered anything like the nun network. Wherever I went, from New York to St. Augustine; from rural Mississippi to San Jose; from the colonias on the Texas border to a school for migrant children in Ohio, I found professional support; gracious collaboration and deep personal resonance. The nuns might be members of diverse religious orders and dedicated to disparate ministries; they might work dawn to dusk running a hospital or spend long hours in prayer in their secluded contemplative congregations; but they greeted me at the door and, within minutes, we were deeply engaged in a congenial working group.

It was like being part of an immense family that extended to 17th cousins, except you didn't need the blood ties. If you'd ever taken vows, or were related to someone who'd taken vows, or were employed or referred by someone who'd taken vows, you were in. They could find you a home or refer you to job openings anywhere in this country or another.

Through their ministry, advocacy, retreat centers and fundraising efforts, the nuns knew everybody.

But unlike the typical American in awe of celebrity, they didn't flaunt their connections. I asked the sisters in Ohio, "How did you get Martin Sheen to narrate your development video?" "Oh, Sister So-and-so taught him way back when, so she asked him, and he said yes." "Do you think he'd pitch the national appeal I'm working on?" "Perhaps. I'll call him." And she did. And he did. Graciously. For free. For the nuns.

The nuns pray for you, and God knows how many times that little perk saved me from disaster. For disaster lurked everywhere. Ministries were located in some of the most awful places--in crime-ridden neighborhoods and in the midst Of desperate poverty--places relatives warned me not to go. But the sisters refused to cower in intimidating circumstances. I could hear gunshots on the street outside the convent gate in Kingston, Jamaica, but the crime lords and lost teens didn't mess with Sister. The video van might have offered a tempting target in a certain neighborhood in Bridgeport, but it wasn't bothered in its space in front of the sisters' literacy center. Certainly bad things could happen, but when I was with nuns, they didn't.

Wherever I went I felt part of something with transcendent ideals. But, practically speaking, it was also a sprawling, decentralized subculture that connected professionals with one another, tapped almost inexhaustible extended networks of donors and bene factors, served wide-ranging societal needs, and always had a spare room for visitors.

You'd think they'd be in your face with religion. But when I'm with nuns, I can attend Mass or not. I can participate in evening prayer or not. In the nun world, faith is a glue that works like Elmer's--it doesn't really announce itself, but it holds things together.