Navigating the nun network

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 25, 2005 by Ginny Cunningham

I found nuns to be as afflicted by humanity as the rest of us, tempted by the power of wealth or the luxury of a donated beach house. They could be angry, frustrated, petty and jealous. And their failures made me irrationally angry. They represented everything that I thought mattered, not just in the Catholic landscape of my childhood, but in an ideal universe, and I demand ed they be faithful 24/7. They wouldn't stay on their pedestal. They seemed to cherish the flawed human individuals they were at the same time they urged humanity to transcend its flaws. So finally, after a few years, I forgave them their imperfections. I even for gave a few of my own.

In one of my current roles, project manager of the annual appeal for the Retirement Fund for Religious, I add to my store of knowledge about nun life as it was. As I do so, I wonder what could possibly take its place. Women have made incalculable strides, but how have they replicated the power and scope of a network that still stretches from sea to sea; from the northern borders of the United States to the southern and beyond?

The nun network aches to care for its elders, manage its still mammoth array of ministries, and in the face of odds that no gambler would take, design a future in a world radically different from the one in which it was founded.

I bear witness to this culture, and I wonder what I would do if I was young and meeting it for the first time.

[Ginny Cunningham is a writer and communications consultant based in Pittsburgh.]