Leo XIV praises courage of sisters facing war and violence

During this audience held in the Vatican, the Pope paid tribute to the memory of “extraordinary women who went forth as missionaries in difficult times” and who “stooped down to care for those suffering moral and material misery, reaching the most neglected areas of society.”

He noted that they “accepted the risk of losing their lives, even to the point of dying as victims of brutal violence in times of war.”

Leo XIV pointed out that “the strength to remain faithful” to the religious vocation comes from the relationship with Christ.

“If we entrust ourselves to him and remain united with him, great things can happen, precisely through our poverty,” the Pontiff said. For this reason, the Church and the world “need generous women,” he said.

The Pope addressed in particular the Carmelites of the Holy Land, who carry out a delicate contemplative mission in this time of war.

This new audience with the Pope for women religious comes at a time of demographic decline in most female congregations.

According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Holy See, Europe has lost nearly 80,000 religious sisters in the space of 10 years, between 2011 and 2021, representing more than a quarter of its total number.

This sharp decline does not alone explain the overall decrease in the number of women religious worldwide (-104,248 from 2011 to 2021). The decline is also noticeable in the Americas. Statistics combine both North and South America — with a drop of nearly 24% in the number of women religious, from around 190,000 to around 145,000, and in Oceania, with a drop of 28%, with the number falling from 8,600 to 6,200.

On the other hand, Asia is growing, with an increase of nearly 5% in the number of women religious (from 167,000 in 2011 to 175,000 in 2021) and, above all, Africa, the main area of growth, with an increase of more than 20%. On this continent, the number of religious sisters has risen from nearly 68,000 to nearly 82,000 during the decade in question.