Just do it, convents tell prospective nuns

The Catholic Church’s efforts to market its way back into relevance may be working. It appears that American convents, “helped by aggressive marketing and a new generation of conservative Roman Catholics,” have seen an increase in willing penitents for the first time in decades. Among the reasons given: Pope John Paul II’s defense of Catholic orthodoxy (which took a while to set in, since he died two years ago); the fact that nunhood is seen as a “radical” way of living (a sentiment that aligns well with our culture’s gross misuse of irony); and, according to Sister Jeana Visel, “a real yearning for a sense of community these days among people in general.”