I'm not sure anyone can help me here but I thought I'd give it a try....I was wondering if anyone knew where you could find recent statistics about people entering and leaving the religious life. A few people have asked me about it recently. So far the internet has failed me miserably. The only stuff I found relates to people leaving post- Vat 2. As you might imagine most of these articles are very negative and not very pertinent given the changes that have occured over the past 40 years. I'm especially interested in knowing if/when people eventually enter other communities. Thanks.

I don't know who collects that type of information, or whether religious orders are obligated to report departures of members, especially if those individuals are not yet in final vows. Maybe one of the sisters who post here can fill us in. I don't know if organizations such as CMSWR track such statistics.

Our monasteries are required yearly to report and departures and transfers to the Master of the Order, who in turn, I believe, reports to the Congregation for Religious. But this is only departures from Solemn Profession, which the Holy See would know about anyway since only the Holy Father can dispense from the obligations of Solemn Profession.

I don't know if the dioceses have to report dispensations from those congregations that are Diocesan and not Pontifical.

All entrances and departures are in the "State of the Community" report which the prioress tenders to her Council and to the Bishop every 3 years when she goes out of office.

I know that CARA tracks such things but again it would probably only be departures from final profession. Before that, it doesn't really "matter".

As the old nuns at Stanbrook Abbey used to say, "They comes and they goes but mostly they goes!"

It's my impression that more religious are transferring between communities than used to be possible. Some contemplative communities report occasionally that they have a new member from another contemplative house, or occasionally from an active branch. I have seen this in one group of contemplative OP nuns, for example. Another branch of the Poor Clares is mainly made up of for members of other orders; I don't know what the breakdown is. I saw recently that a newly professed member of an updated OSB order was, for a long time, a contemplative in asia! When a community takes on a new member, they usually designate that she is from another order, as the formation is different, and occasionally they state which order the new member is from. I think that it is not an insignificant number. I have no idea what the men's orders are doing.

I've been wondering too...and I would like to know it for my self. I'm taking statistics right now don't mind to do it if I can get the data. I think it would be next to the impossible to get the data. It is not something that any congregation/community like to share...

Contact CARA at Georgetown.

They may have stats or can suggest how to get them.

I think that this is an important issue.

it may be useful for some people to know that it is ok to discern with an order and find out it is not for them. I would imagine that some would feel the pressure in discerning for a vocation to a particular religious order as so many seem to have a window shopping approach to finding the right community - almost like they have to make the right decision first time round. Perhaps knowledge of the "tried and moved on to something else" experience may make some future discerners feel more comfortable in taking the extra step to make initial contact and that it is not the end of the world if it doesnt work out.

Well I still haven't had any luck but thanks for the tips.

I believe the number of religious who leave is vastly different from what it was during the first few decades after Vatican II. I don't have any stats, either, but it sounds like the Georgetown suggestion might be good...

There are two separate questions:

1) number of those LEAVING religious life, at the various phases, after 1 and 2 year novitiate, after temp vows, after final profession, simple and solemn, and

2) those TRANSFERRING to another congregation of the same type, especially in contemplative communities, and to an altogether different community--and why. I have seem particularly more of the latter in recent years.

Some communities transfer their sisters for detachment reasons, from what I have heard. Would that fall into the same category as "transferred sisters" since they're not being transferred because of their own desire/ the community not feeling they fit in?

And to make further distinctions, the number of those LEAVING a religous order may be different between men and women's communities. Also, diocesan seminaries will have different numbers from religious orders of men. A friend of mine is now in studying to be a priest in a religious order (Dominicans) but was previously in diocesan seminary (in Minnesota). And his speculation was that about 50% of men who enter diocesan seminary in undergraduate will be ordained and the other half will not.

While numbers and statistics tell you part of the story, they rarely give you the nuanced big picture.