Research over the past six decades reveals that the number of Catholic sisters has steadily declined, but they remain committed to what they believe matters most — expanding ministries and serving more people.
Based on findings from the Official Catholic Directory, the Vatican’s Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae, and other research from Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the number of religious sisters has plummeted since 1965.
In 1965, there were 178,740 religious sisters in the United States. By 1985, there were 115,386, and in 2000 there were 79,814. Based on the latest reports, in 2025 there were only 33,135 sisters in the U.S., accounting for an 82% decrease over the past 60 years.
“The goal of Catholic sisters is to always have more missions. Not necessarily more sisters,” Sister Teresa Maya, CCVI, senior director of theology and sponsorship at the Catholic Health Association of the United States, told EWTN News.
It is important that sisters “partner with the people of God, and with men and women of goodwill, that are willing to join us in making sure [those] who are the most vulnerable are getting the care, the presence, and the education that they deserve as children of God,” she said.
Despite the decline, religious sisters continue to dedicate their lives to prayer, evangelization, and serving those in need. From March 8 to March 14 these religious sisters are celebrated during the annual Catholic Sisters Week, which takes place each year at the start of women’s history month.
The week is organized by Communicators for Women Religious, an organization “advancing the mission of Catholic sisters” in more than 50 countries and territories. The 2026 theme is “Stories of Hope and Heart,” intended to capture the essence Catholic sisters hope to share through presence, encouragement, and accompaniment.
Work of Catholic sisters
Sisters today are active in a diverse array of ministries. “You can find them in Catholic higher education, governments, serving as sponsors, or you can find them serving as mission leaders, in pastoral care, or chaplains,” Maya said.
As they carry out their own missions, sisters are also simultaneously helping other women discern religious life. Young women discerning their calling in the Church should “let the charism take you, because in many ways, it’s the Holy Spirit that’s the root of that call,” Maya said,
“And then once that happens, you, as an individual, have gifts from the Holy Spirit that will help energize the charism of that institute,” she said. Also “trust the gifts of the spirit to point you in the direction of the ministry that God wants for you at this time.”
Sister Mary Kay Dobrovolny, RSM, coordinator for New Member Ministry for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, said “vowed religious life remains an attractive and viable option for many young adults today,” as it offers both a life dedicated to Christ and the opportunity to serve causes they are most passionate about.
“Many young adults are drawn to a life in community, centered in God, and extending out to serve those most marginalized in our world. Sometimes there is a challenge of visibility of the fullness of our life,” Dobrovolny said in a statement to EWTN News.
“One young woman told me it was a ‘game changer’ for her when she learned that someone as passionate about environmental justice as she could be a sister,” she said. “We, and our ministries, remain deeply relevant today.”
The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur (SNDdeN), an international apostolic congregation of Catholic sisters, has an emphasis in education and assisting impoverished women and children, which remains “attractive to faithful young women today,” Sister Kristin Matthes, SNDdeN, said in a statement to EWTN News.
“We see young women learning about the work of our sisters through their attendance at SNDdeN-sponsored schools and getting involved with programs and volunteer opportunities that illuminate our mission,” she said.
The sisters work with schools to offer programs including “Adopt-A-Sister,” which matches young women and sisters for visits and discussions each month. Volunteer opportunities and high school book clubs with the sisters also promote conversation as they discern their callings in the Church.
Women in other roles in the Catholic Church
The many ministries sisters serve are also carried out by a number of laywomen who may have not discerned religious life but still choose to live out the Church’s mission.
“Every Catholic ministry in the United States, probably, is a 9 to 1 ratio between laymen and women” and religious, Maya said. “They collaborate in every area. The professors, the teachers in Catholic universities or Catholic schools, or even coaches, to nurses, doctors, administrators, accountants, or pastoral care leaders.”
“There’s just a lot of roles… but what matters is that all these organizations are faithful to Catholic identity, that they are places that respect human dignity, are welcoming, but above all, that they have a mission to care and a mission to evangelize,” she said.
Sisters and non-sisters alike are also taking on high levels of leadership roles, even at the Vatican. The percentage of Vatican employees who are women grew from 19.2% to 23.4% during the first decade of the last pontificate.
Pope Francis appointed a number of women to top positions at the Vatican, and Pope Leo XIV has recently followed the trajectory by appointing two religious sisters to the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
Margherita Romanelli, president of the Women in the Vatican (“Donne in Vaticano”) Association, commended the newest female appointments by the pope. They “have greatly helped other women in the workforce to feel valued and to commit themselves to working for the common good, alongside men,” she told EWTN News’ “Vaticano.”
Romanelli, who has worked at the Vatican for 31 years across four pontificates, said associations like hers, “which are inspired by Gospel values, have a very important role to play in collaborating with all women.” She is “confident that the number of women in top positions will continue to increase.”
“I think the Church benefits from tapping into the skills, the experience, and the intuitiveness of women,” said Marianne Mount, a consultor to the Dicastery for Culture and Education at the Vatican. “I’m very happy that Pope Leo is continuing the tradition that Pope Francis really tried to initiate during his pontificate.”