Women gather with sisters at a recent Bethany Brunch, an event held regularly by Friends of the Bridegroom at the Bethany House of Prayer, where visitors have a chance to meet, pray and interact with religious sisters. (Submitted photo)
Once upon a time, the Catholic Church was filled with women religious.
The Church today would not exist, in its current form, without their tremendous contributions. Sisters taught in the Catholic schools. They served in the Catholic hospitals. They were an ordinary presence in every Catholic parish, and a Catholic child could not grow up without knowing at least one or two sisters personally. Catholics and non-Catholics alike relied — and continue to rely — on ministries built by the hard work of dedicated religious women.
In fact, the Catholic sister was so ubiquitous that the stereotype of her persists even now — in movies, in comedy acts and in personal belief.
Everyone has seen a nun or a woman religious on television. But how often do they see one in the flesh?
“We’ve heard priests say that sometimes, when they are talking about vocations and they’re trying to explain to girls the possibility of being a sister, they feel like they’re trying to describe a unicorn,” said Emily Davenport. “Like, ‘We think they exist … we’ve never seen one. But imagine!’”
Davenport serves full time with Friends of the Bridegroom, a Milwaukee-based apostolate formed for the purpose of renewing the Church through “healing, renewal and expansion of women’s religious life in America.”
So, what does that look like in practice? Well, it looks like reminding the world that the Catholic woman religious is not a unicorn. She is not the stuff of fairy tales, a myth, a dying breed or even a relic of a bygone age. She is a real, living woman of flesh and blood. She could be your daughter, your sister, your friend.
She could be you.
Friends of the Bridegroom was founded in 2023 by Fr. John Burns, who was assigned in 2022 by now-Archbishop Emeritus Jerome E. Listecki to devote himself full time to support women’s vocations in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and around the country.
In a video on the apostolate’s website, Fr. Burns compares the diminishing number of women religious with the elimination of wolves from Yellowstone National Park, a development that resulted in a dangerous upset to the balance of the park’s ecosystem.
When the wolves were reintroduced, balance was restored; the ecosystem thrived.
“We know from Scripture that the Church is also a body; it’s composed of many parts,” said Fr. Burns. “We struggle with so much in the Church, not just because of the culture, but (because of) the certain sense that something’s missing. We’re not well. We keep trying different programs and initiatives and efforts to renew, and so many of these things have worked really beautifully. But I think there’s one area that we’re not looking at … (which is) the presence of the consecrated religious woman.”
Perhaps the biggest part of the problem is that young Catholics don’t see enough sisters. The wolf, so to speak, has become a myth.
We as a Church cannot accept that, Davenport said.
“Every woman, every person in the Church, needs to start with an awareness of the ways that God could be calling her to offer the gift of herself,” she said.
Most commonly, Catholic girls see that gift offered through the vocation of marriage. Because of falling rates of women’s vocations globally, they don’t often see, firsthand, how it is offered in the form of consecrated life. So, Friends of the Bridegroom is working to make that offering more visible, creating moments of encounter between women religious and the broader Church.
In the past 18 months, Friends of the Bridegroom has hosted 53 religious sisters at Bethany House of Prayer and welcomed around 250 young women to its events. Representatives have also worked with numerous parishes throughout the archdiocese to offer more than a dozen events like Culture of Vocations, which they recently coordinated at Holy Trinity and St. Michael Parishes in Kewaskum.
“We brought some sisters that were in town for a few days, and we did an event for parents, answering their questions. The sisters shared with them about what it means to be called to religious life and how to cultivate that in their families,” Davenport said. The sisters also spent time with a local group for young Catholic girls and visited the parish school.
More than anything, Friends of the Bridegroom has been starting conversations — in Catholic families, schools, parishes and communities — about what God could be asking of our daughters, our granddaughters, our nieces and ourselves.
Because, as a benefactor of Friends of the Bridegroom often says, “a Church without religious sisters is like a home without a mother.”
“Without them, we’re just missing something,” Davenport said.
The apostolate is also planning to publish a women’s vocation poster that can be displayed in parishes alongside the men’s vocation poster featuring seminarians.
“We see priests all the time; that’s a very natural thing for our boys. But we have to work a little harder at it for the women because there are not sisters in all the schools anymore,” she said. “It’s going to take a really active step on the Church’s part to show that this is still an option, as a woman grows into the season of life where she’s ready to offer the gift of herself.”
