V-2 Nuns of 'Convent of St. Matthias' are moving out and moving on

Philly.com reports: Sometime this month, the Sisters of Mercy will attend Mass, pray, and eat dinner together one last time at the St. Matthias convent in Bala Cynwyd. Then they will move out, leaving behind the 15-bedroom stone building that for decades housed the nuns who ministered in the parish and taught at its school. "They were a foundation of our growing up," said Jenn Light Lynons, 48, of Havertown, an alumna of the now-closed school... Only five nuns remain, all older than 70.... The departures of Sisters Margaret, Virginia Kauffmann, Kathleen Anne McKee, Antoinette Zimmerman, and Kathleen Fox mirror what is happening in other religious communities as their members age. Since 1965, when 181,000 nuns served nationwide, the number of has declined about 72 percent. Now there are about 50,000, and 90 percent of them are older than 60, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, affiliated with Georgetown University.... The group of gray-haired women, some dressed in casual jackets, slacks, and skirts, looked different from the days when many of them joined the community as young women. "They went from long habits to short habits, and then to no habits," said Betty Haenn, 77, of Wynnewood, whose 10 children attended the school. "It's hard to believe they're leaving, but it's the times." Lisa Longo of Bala Cynwyd watched from a front pew as her daughter Lucinda Eisenstein, 16, participated in the Mass as an altar server. As Longo looked over at row after row of older nuns sitting in the sanctuary, she wondered who would take their places. "Who is going to be a nun?" Longo said...