What a tongue-twister: We're thinking about nuns--the kind that used to live in convents--and nones--the religiously unaffiliated.
Nones by the Numbers
September 30, 2016
Politicians want their votes, social movements want their support, and houses of worship want them back. Pollster Robert P. Jones traces the explosive growth of the religiously unaffiliated, AKA the 'nones.' His finding in broad brush strokes: they're young, they're white, and they rarely vote. And they now make up the largest "religious group" in the nation.
A lighthearted take on the spiritual but not religious crowd from CollegeHumor.com...
Grace and Grief Without God
September 30, 2016
First, Katherine Ozment walks us through the moment she realized "nothing" wasn't the right answer to her son's question about their religious identity. She set out to discover just what that "something" meant for her and millions of other people finding community outside of houses of worship.
Then: Where do non-religious people go when they need a spiritual harbor? Producer Katie Dreyer attends a dinner party where young "nones" are writing their own instruction manual on grief. Her story originally aired in May, 2016.
Nuns aren't who you think they are. You might not even know when you're in front of one...Like right now. If you're listening to the show, you are listening to a nun. Our own Maureen Fiedler is a Catholic nun, a Sister of Loretto. But your chances of meeting a nun like Maureen are becoming smaller and smaller. There are fewer than 50,000 nuns in the United States today--that’s about 75 percent fewer nuns than in 1965. And so this week, we kick off our new series, Nuns Now, about the everyday lives of modern religious sisters.
We start with Sister Judy Murray, a cloistered nun in Baltimore. She gives us a peek into her life of simplicity, celibacy, and obedience ... and the occasional trip outside the convent.