In 2022, there were just 42,000 nuns in America and the majority were elderly. For The Baffler, Lauren Fadiman spent some time with Benedictine sisters and explored the history and decline of religious life. "There was a time when the convent was the closest a woman could get to both the Lord and women’s lib," she writes. "The vow of chastity lifted the burdens of early marriage, bad sex, and potentially lethal childbirth; the habit released women from the obligations of beauty; and the requisite knowledge of Latin and a wide range of religious texts required that nuns be well-educated."
