An opportunity lies right around the corner to help Catholic sisters, brothers and religious order priests who have served selflessly for decades without significant financial compensation.
A workspace at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul was covered Nov. 15 with colorful suncatchers with faceted pendants, beaded bookmarks and zipper pulls for jackets, embellished “to, from” gift tags created from recycled cards and other craft items.
It’s a startling statistic: today, Catholic sisters, brothers and priests who are past age 70 outnumber those in religious orders under the age of 70 by nearly 3 to 1.
The U.S. bishops’ Retirement Fund for Religious is widely known for helping sisters, brothers and priests in religious communities who served for decades for little or no pay. Perhaps less recognized are ways the fund helps new religious communities start planning now for retirements that might be years down the line.
Orders of women and men religious received, collectively, $28 million in financial help from the National Religious Retirement Office, the umbrella group that coordinates the annual Retirement Fund for Religious campaign in parishes and dioceses nationwide.
The religious sisters who have recently overseen the Retirement Fund for Religious have a notable trait in common: They’re past the standard retirement age.
In the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the annual Retirement Fund for Religious collection is Dec. 13-14. Catholics will be speaking at parishes and reflecting on the impact the religious have had on their own lives.
On a recent morning, School Sister of Notre Dame Jane Thibault sat at a small desk in a classroom at Hope Academy, a charter school on St. Paul’s East Side, playing word games with a second-grader and making him feel confident as he read aloud.
