Ann Arbor, Mich. – The Internet is breathing fresh life into an
ancient institution in trouble for years – the nunnery.
Faced with declining enrollment since the mid-1960s, some Roman
Catholic convents have harnessed a distinctly modern tool to
attract young women to the religious life – e-mail.
It is, said Sister Joseph Andrew Bogdanowicz, vocation director
at the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, in Ann
Arbor, “an apostolate we didn’t expect.”
“But now,” she added, “it’s become so all-encompassing. If
I’m not traveling or giving a talk, I’m e-mailing.”
Young women who come to live at this handsome brick campus enter
a rigorous, tightly controlled program that ends, after eight
years, with their final vows of chastity, obedience and poverty.
Days begin at 5:30 a.m., when full sisters and those in training
gather in the airy chapel before a 19th-century Spanish altarpiece
and offer prayers for the world.
The rest of the day is packed with other communal prayers – more
than four hours’ worth – academic study, spiritual reading,
athletics, vespers and, at 10 p.m., “profound silence.”
And, of course, chores and duties. On one sunny morning last
week, the young women were in the convent’s huge kitchen baking
biscotti that smelled, well, just heavenly.
Dominican sisters typically work out in the world – often in
Catholic schools – following the 13th-century St. Dominic’s mandate
to preach and teach.
Before this particular Sisters of Mary community was founded in
1997 to spread the Dominican message – largely through the
assistance of Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan – Sister Joseph
Andrew had never e-mailed a soul in her life.
Today she wades through about 100 e-mails a day, many from women
looking for guidance in their “discernment,” the period of
deciding whether to enter a religious vocation.
The results speak for themselves.
As many convents dwindle, the Sisters of Mary are thriving with
73 postulants and novices – the two intermediate stages of training
that lead to final vows.
“There’s no room at the inn, even for us,” Sister Joseph
Andrew said. “We just can’t build fast enough.”
Added Mother Assumpta Long, who heads the convent, “God
continues to bless us beyond all our imaginings. It’s obvious that
he wants this ‘family.’ ”
And in a world where the average nun is 69, here in the
Washtenaw County countryside, the average age is 24 – if you
exclude Sister Joseph Andrew, Mother Assumpta and the other two
older women who founded the community.
Often derided as debasing the language and letter-writing in
general, e-mail has, according to Sister Joseph Andrew, presented
her with a remarkably efficient means of communicating in depth
with young women.
“I don’t really have much time for phone calls,” she said.
“But I can type fast. And e-mail allows that space for the young
woman to really take her time and answer with clarity and
precision.”
The point is, Sister Joseph Andrew said, young women need
considerable mentoring to help walk them through the discernment
process – precisely the assistance she provides.
For Tracy Wietecha of Pinckney, who’s finishing high school,
e-mailing with Sister Joseph Andrew – and other young women
contemplating putting on the habit – has been an indispensable part
of her decision to become a sister.
Wietecha enters the Sisters of Mary as a postulant in August.
Vocation came early to Wietecha. She says she realized she
wanted to become a nun in the fourth grade, and began communicating
with the Sisters of Mary.
“I started writing Sister Joseph Andrew when I was in sixth
grade,” she said. “She’s given me so much guidance and wisdom.
She’s always there for us, to answer our questions and direct us.”
Typical of the iPod generation, Wietecha’s connection with the
Internet goes far beyond e-mail.
She has a blog where she discusses her career choice, and has
created a blog ring where she and about 20 other young people
wrestle with religious issues.
Sister Peter Mary Campagna, a novice who traded college for the
convent and has been in Ann Arbor a little over a year, also
blogged about her religious vocation before entering.
Many who visited her blog then e-mailed her directly, and Sister
Peter Mary found those discussions immensely helpful.
“When I would struggle or have questions,” said the young
woman originally from Oregon, “to have the reassurance of all
these young women who were going through the same experience – it
really helped.”
This sort of support, noted Sister Joseph Andrew , is
particularly important in a world where nuns aren’t nearly as
numerous or visible as 40 years ago.
Interestingly, however, while e-mail may have played a key role
in bringing many of these young women to the Sisters of Mary, once
they reach the convent, they give up all e-mail privileges – part
of the sacrifice and retreat from the world that characterizes
their religious vocation.
Sister Peter Mary says some friends have asked how she can bear
not having access to e-mail.
She would explain, she said, “that in religious life, you’re
called not just to give up evil, but also goods like e-mail. It
purifies you of those external things you don’t need. To learn your
dependence on God.”
There is, of course, one other overriding advantage to e-mail
compared to letters or phone calls when dealing with dozens of
earnest potential applicants with a million questions.
“E-mail lets me cover a lot of territory,” Sister Joseph
Andrew said. “I can run in and pray for them like crazy, and then
push ‘Reply All,’ and hit them all.
“And that,” she added, smiling beatifically, “is beautiful.”
