The education provided by the Catholic Schools when the students were taught by nuns was far superior than anything that is being provided to the children of this generation. The biggest thing with the loss of Nuns is now a Catholic education is no longer within reach financially for most families. The nuns being teachers allowed for much more affordable tuition as they were not collecting salaries for the most part. Going to a Catholic School now and being taught by a lay teacher is essentially the same as going to a public school and having a religious class thrown in. The nuns were the finest teachers this nation has ever known. They knew all subjects and we were educated at a superbly high level. Oh and they gave us discipline. The loss of nuns as educators has left a true vacancy in our nation. Oh for the old days and old ways.

The women figured out how the catholic church practiced discrimination against them. They were the lower class and reminded every day by priests that were abusing children. Why would a women want to subject themselves to that abuse? The catholic church lost its way and was exposed by the pedophile scandel and they never owned up to it. No suprise here.

Well, those of us who send our children to Catholic schools must be willing to pay a higher tuition. My husband and I sacrificed to send our seven children to Catholic schools. Good teachers are willing to work at religious schools because there is still discipline at those schools unlike many of the public schools. Much of the work done by those religious women is now being done by lay members of the Catholic church which is how it was done in the early Church. How many families today encourage their children to consider religious vocations? Those are formed at home.

It's a stunning irony of history that within the bowels of a most paternalistic and male-centric organization known as the Catholic Church, women could carve out a space that permitted them to become fully self-actualized and unfold full rich lives in the service of others. Only as nuns could women develop their own independent identities with a wide variety of skills and abilities. Such independence and freedom would have been unheard in society at large, it was in stark contrast to an American society that stifled women by restricting their potential to the role of sexualized babymaker. As a conscious, deliberate decision nuns renounce the idea that women can only be defined by their reproductive prowess, by having children. By making this simple decision nuns possess infinitely more freedom to unfold their potential as human beings than women chained by raising their own progeny. Becoming a nun has been, since the early 19th century and until very recently, virtually the only avenue a woman could take to avoid the expectation of procreation. Interestingly, and revealingly, feminists have never tapped into, or celebrated, the inspirational potential of nuns as the real foundation of female self-empowerment in American history. Yet only with nuns does one find the true image of woman as a fully self-actualized human being valued for what she *does*, not what she looks like.

Utter puff piece. I had eight years of Catholic school, taught by nuns. Some were good, others were criminal psychopaths. I witnessed kids beaten to the floor with heavy objects, heads slammed agianst blackboards, entire classrooms beaten one at a time by leather belt (which had to be kissed by the child). Not to mention merciless humiliation and verbal cruelty delivered in expert fashion in front of the entire class. Most classes had its favorites who could do no wrong and scapegoats who could do no right. Also, let's pretend the horrors in the unwed mother's homes in Ireland never took place. Shame on the author of this propaganda.

True story:  the only nun who slapped me died shortly afterwards.  And I swear I had nothing to do with it!  But even she had her good points and, by far, all of the other nuns were very sweet and caring teachers.  I had (and have) the greatest respect for them.

After reading this article, I wish they had a level of "higher-in-command sisters" who were on par with bishops or cardinals so they wouldn't have to be supervised by them as second-class citizens.

BTW -- and just a little side note to fellow commenting Catholic school graduates/survivors -- misspelled words don't exactly help our case about the nuns' good schooling!  :-)

I'm really sorry, but I don't understand how it is that a woman is supposed to live her life as a celibate and single woman in order to achieve something.  If she wants to, fine, and I have plenty of friends and even late relatives who were women who never married and who led productive lives.  (But, to tell the truth, most of them, I could sort of tell, would perhaps have rather married and never got to for one reason or anther.)  I was taught by nuns in high school and college and loved my college nun-professors, especially.  What great women they were and are!  But I think that they come out of an era where it was considered virtuous to be celibate and be "married to Christ" whereas today this move is not considered so much needed or valued.  Let's leave it at that.  Fewer women want to or need to follow this path and, I think, for good reason.  

"insufficient orthodoxy" ... well, nuns are not men, so what would you expect.  

"The" church cant have it both ways: as women, nuns can not be all that good, inferior to men and only fit to take orders.