Not long after Pope Francis’s election a Vatican official made a sombre announcement. Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo disclosed that more than 3,000 men and women were leaving religious orders every year. Most left, he said, at a relatively young age due to an “absence of spiritual life”, a “loss of a sense of community” or a “loss of a sense of belonging to the Church”.
So it was not surprising that the Pope sounded the alarm about the decline of the religious life last weekend. In an address to the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Pope said the traditional orders were “haemorrhaging” members.
