c. 2004 Religion News Service

BEDFORD, Ohio _ The nuns walked slowly down the ramp from the motherhouse and proceeded toward the Shrine of Our Lady of Levocha _ their final acts as Vincentian Sisters of Charity.

Most had taken this same walk as young women the day they took their first vows, and again for their final vows.

But on Sunday (June 27), the women, some in wheelchairs, some with walkers, some smiling and dancing and others with lips quivering and clenched to keep back tears, were on their way to take new vows as members of the larger and younger Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati.

Members of a religious order that survived Ku Klux Klan cross burnings and poverty to serve scores of Northeast Ohio parishes and schools for more than three-quarters of a century finally found a mountain they could not climb.

So the Cleveland order, down to 49 members from a high of 150 in the 1960s, jumped on the leading edge of a trend that faces many graying, declining communities of nuns across the country: merger or death.

What they chose Sunday was life, and they celebrated the decision to close their order and merge with the Cincinnati community before several hundred people who stood and applauded them from the moment they entered the shrine. The service ended with a chorus of “alleluias” and the ringing of the convent bells in a joyous procession in which the Bedford nuns were joined by 140 members of their new order.

“Nothing dies today,” said Cleveland Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, who concelebrated the service with some 20 area priests whose parishes the sisters served. Rather, he said, the merger took an act of courage.

“You are wonderful servants of God’s love, and this local church is so grateful to you,” Pilla told the sisters in their last moments as an independent order of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. “This is something new. This is something marvelous and full of hope.”

The first Vincentian sisters came to the Cleveland Diocese in 1928 from an order in Pittsburgh, at the request of Cleveland Bishop Joseph Schrembs, who needed Slovak-speaking sisters for the diocese. Five nuns were given a house in Bedford. By 1939, there were 46 sisters, and the sisters here became an independent diocesan order.

In those days, the motherhouse was filled with young nuns in full habits roller-skating through the hallways, ignoring the cross burnings on their lawn and other acts of barely concealed anti-Catholic prejudice to work long hours teaching parochial school classes of 70 and 80 students. They worked for tiny stipends, cleaning the buildings at night at parishes that could not afford a janitor and going home to diets of rice and potatoes so generations of immigrant children could have a Catholic education.

And their self-sacrifice was a beacon to other young women. Celebrating new novices with a special treat such as ice cream or candy, the order grew rapidly, reaching a high of 150 in the 1960s.

But the Vincentian order, like other religious communities, experienced a sharp decline as young women no longer were attracted to celibate, lifelong vocations. Nationally, the number of nuns in the United States has declined from 180,000 in 1965 to 73,000 last year. The drop has been particularly steep for the Cleveland Vincentians, who have lost 20 members in just the last four years.

As early as 1996, the sisters decided to seek a merger to keep their ministry alive. They found their match three years ago in the Cincinnati-based Sisters of Charity, a younger and much larger order with 502 nuns and a median age of 70.

Sister Barbara Hagedorn, president of the Cincinnati order, said it was a “courageous” decision.

“Go to meet your grace” has been the principle both orders have followed in the three years of meetings leading up to the merger, Hagedorn said. “The whole thing was just such a faith journey. Staying open to the grace of God was what brought us to this Sunday.”

Sister Janice Bader, project director of retirement services for the National Religious Retirement Office, said many communities have combined provinces within their orders, and several orders are exploring mergers. But it is still rare for two separate orders to come together.

It’s a bittersweet experience, she said, because church law requires one of the communities to be dissolved.

In the merger, the leadership team of the Cleveland order was disbanded, and the Bedford motherhouse now will be known as the Villa San Bernardo Residence. The new motherhouse will be in Cincinnati.

But sisters here will be able to stay in Bedford and will continue their ministry as lawyers, college professors, parish associates and teachers. If they choose, elderly sisters may move to the larger motherhouse in Cincinnati, while downstate retired sisters with family in Northeast Ohio may choose to move to Bedford.

Among other advantages, sisters will have new missionary opportunities opened to them, whether it is in Appalachia, where the former Vincentians still work, or in Guatemala, where the Cincinnati-based order does ministry.

Still, this was not an easy decision for the Vincentian Sisters of Charity of Cleveland.

Before the public ceremony Sunday, the sisters held a private Blessing of Memories service. At the end of the morning service, the Bedford sisters presented Pilla with their community flag, constitution and seal. A moment of silence followed.

But the afternoon was a time to celebrate their new life.

“It’s like having come to shore after a long journey and experiencing a wonderful welcome,” said Sister Regina Kusnir, a former administrator of the Cleveland order. “There is great peace because there is this very deep knowledge that this is what is truly meant for us in God’s great design.”

DEA/PH END BRIGGS