PALMYRA, Pa. — It was a radical idea, and for many years, she had been resistant. But as Zoey Stapleton, 24, walked down a darkened hiking trail, steps behind her parents, she counted back from three and “took a leap of faith,” revealing to them that she wanted to become a nun.

And though there were moments of silence that evening just over a year ago, the news of her decision — and eventual acceptance into a religious institute — didn’t come as a complete surprise to her parents, who say their faith deepened because of their daughter’s.

Stapleton, a recent graduate of Franciscan University, a Catholic college in Ohio, will be among the less than 1% of nuns in the United States today who are 30 or younger. That number has remained steady in the past decade but shows little signs of increasing.

Between 100 and 200 young women enter into a religious vocation each year in the U.S. Some never complete the process to become a nun.

Those who do give up many trappings of modern life — dating, material wealth, sometimes even cellphones and fashionable clothes — for the sake of an immersive religious life and intergenerational community, while the average age of an American nun is 80.

Just this year, Pope Francis urged orders to pray harder for more priests and nuns as he acknowledged that the number of men and women entering Catholic religious life continues to plummet in parts of the world, including Europe and the U.S.

The number of nuns in the U.S. peaked in 1965 at 178,740 and declined to 39,452 by 2022, according the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

There are just over 500 communities of women religious in the U.S., and most have 50 or fewer members, according to Thomas Gaunt, CARA’s executive director.

“Those communities that have younger members and are fairly active tend to attract other younger members,” he said.

Stapleton — raised a Catholic, attended Catholic schools from pre-K to college — was familiar with nuns, but it was with the Franciscan Sisters, T.O.R. of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother that she found a deeper connection.

“I just found that they were very personally invested with me as a person, not just as a possible sister,” she said.

In August, she and two other women joined the community nestled in the hills of Toronto, Ohio, as postulants.

The former college tennis player and coach has even found an athletic bond with the sisters.

“They really love being active,” Stapleton said. “I’ve played a vicious game of soccer with them before and Ultimate Frisbee. There’s blood and sweat. It’s awesome.”

The Franciscan Sisters, T.O.R, was founded in 1988.

Others established in that era include the Sisters of Life, which is active in anti-abortion causes and which Stapleton briefly considered joining.

“They’re a very blooming order right now. They have a lot of vocations, praise God,” she said.

Over the past 30 years they’ve grown from 10 members to more than 120, according to Gaunt.

Both communities are part of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, a U.S. association of orders often seen as more conservative than its larger counterpart, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

Before entering the order, Stapleton said one of the challenging transitions would be to give up her sense of style and wear the habit.

“I’m a big pro-habit girl,” she said. “You’re supposed to be a sign of contradiction in the world. If you look like everyone else, they’re not going to know who you’re living for.”

The order’s patron saint, Francis of Assisi, led a life of poverty. In emulation, the sisters dress in modest habits consisting of a long white veil and gray robes that many choose to pair with modern sandals. The sisters think of this as their wedding garments as “brides” of Christ.

The women abstain from other forms of modernity, using only a set of shared flip phones and the internet when necessary for their ministry.

More than anything, Stapleton was drawn to this community because of the joy and freedom in the sisters’ relationship with the Lord. “I think it connected with that part of me like wanting to express actually how much I do love the Lord,” she said.

Sister Philomena Clare DeHitta, whose ministry as vocations director is to facilitate the freedom to choose and “articulate the desire to live a radical life,” describes their community as unique in spirituality and size.

“There are communities that have a more broad apostolate or spirituality that is just easier for women to enter into,” she said. “Historically our classes have been small.”

Some religious communities are more contemplative or cloistered away from the world, while others are active in professions and missions outside of their convents or monasteries. The Franciscan sisters describe themselves as a blend.

Although there have been many new communities officially recognized since the Second Vatican Council, Gaunt describes them as a “drop in the bucket” when looking at the larger context of decline.

“There are new religious communities starting all the time,” he said, “and there are older religious communities going out of existence.”

To truly begin the journey of becoming a nun, a woman is asked to relinquish worldly possessions, meeting the expectation of poverty. That includes debt, which can be an issue for educated young women today.

“Like almost half of all those discerning in the U.S., I’m blocked from my vocation because of student loans,” said Katie Power, like Stapleton a graduate of Franciscan University.

The 23-year-old from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is an aspirant with the Carmelites of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, in Loretto, Pennsylvania, a cloistered community.

Power found support through the Labouré Society, a Catholic nonprofit that helps young women discerning religious life pay off their student loan debt by gathering donations so they may enter their vocation.

“It is a beautiful program because if I discern out — I hope I don’t — I would take on my loan payments again,” Power said. Money for her loans would then be passed to another candidate.

In recent months, Power has shared her call to religious life with church communities and other groups in pursuit of donations to go toward debt relief.

“I was at a Mass on campus at Franciscan and just experienced the most beautiful intimacy with Jesus in the Eucharist,” Power recalled, knowing at that moment she wanted to remain in communion with God. “Ultimately, that’s the cloistered life.”

She hopes to be officially free of debt soon and then join the Carmelites as a postulant in the summer.

About half of prospective nuns complete the long process to make final vows

On average the full process to become a Catholic sister takes 7 to 10 years.

Commonly one enters as a postulant and lives at least part-time with the order. A woman is officially called a sister when she enters the novitiate stage followed by the canonical novitiate, which is a year dedicated to prayer and studying the vows of the order.

Then, she makes temporary vows and finally perpetual, or final vows.

For Sister Seyram Mary Adzokpa, there was the added challenge of discerning her vocation during a global pandemic.

It forced the now 30-year-old millennial to meet members of the Sisters of the Holy Family over video calls. A nurse by training, she made the decision at 27 to join the order without ever visiting the community, a common tradition called a “come and see.”