Woe Behind the Walls

The contemplative orders of the Roman Catholic Church are in trouble. Despite an upsurge of new recruits in the years following World War II, such orders as the Trappists, Poor Clares and Carmelites have recently suffered a loss in numbers as a result of defections and a decline in novices.

According to Vatican statistics issued last year, the Trappists and Carmelites alone experienced a drop of nearly 700 members in the preceding twelve months. In most U.S. Trappist monasteries, membership is down by some 50% from postwar peaks; the abbey in Piffard, N.Y., which once harbored 76 monks, has only 36 today. In France, the number of cloistered nuns has dropped in the past decade, forcing 47 convents to close.

Superiors of contemplative societies attribute the defections to what they term today's "Peace Corps mentality"-- the desire of many young Catholics to serve God by good deeds in the world rather than through a life of prayer. Another problem is that the monastic orders, most of which date from the Middle Ages, have been slower than most other branches to adopt the reforming spirit of the Second Vatican Council--although they are beginning to do so. Last year the Trappists modified their centuries-old tradition of silence, now allow monks more freedom to speak under certain circumstances. A number of convents have removed the forbidding iron-bar grilles that once separated the nuns from visitors.

Abbots and abbesses of contemplative communities believe that more changes are necessary--most notably, greater contact with the secular world. But renewal is proceeding slowly, partly because of the opposition of older monks and nuns who resent any departure from tradition.

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