St. Catherine’s University is celebrating National Catholic Sisters Week March 8 through 14 to highlight the good works and good will of Catholic Sisters.

Sisters both past and present are celebrated, and St. Thomas Sister Katarina Schuth said she has a lot to celebrate.

Schuth has been a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Rochester order for 50 years and a St. Thomas faculty member for 23 years. She is in the process of writing a book about changes in the Catholic community.

Her book will focus on changes to Catholic life, especially to the seminary. It will be the final installment in a series that has tracked the church over a 30-year time period.

“It’s just a dramatic difference in the church,” Schuth said. “It’s bringing it up to date and projecting into the future.”

Along with tracking and analyzing changes, Schuth has covered sexual abuse scandals that have come to light during the past 30 years in her book, “Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse Among Catholic Clergy.” She has given presentations nationally to spread awareness and prevention. She will present to fourth-year seminarians in the next few weeks.

“I did about a dozen PowerPoint presentations that presented every angle of it that you could imagine,” Schuth said. “It has to be studied to be prevented.”

Schuth explained that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has a proportionately small number of abuse cases. Though it is comparatively rare, she said even one case is terrible.

“It’s there, and it’s a bad thing that happened, and it’s better that it’s brought out and dealt with,” Schuth said.

Schuth acknowledged that these scandals can have an effect on people’s views of the Catholic Church and could influence one’s desire to become involved in religious life.

“It paints a very negative picture,” Schuth said. “The church is growing, and the number of seminarians and ordinations are not so great. I think we could and would have more.”

Schuth said she does not consider the cases to be associated with her own faith.

“Sometimes they’re so disgusting I have to think of it as a case that I’m studying. It’s not my faith life, it’s not my religious life, it’s not the Catholic Church. It’s a thing that happened within the Catholic Church that’s really awful,” Schuth said.

Schuth teaches two classes during the school year, one on pastoral ministry for seminarians and one on American or world religion to all undergraduates. In addition to academic support, Schuth said is always willing to help students outside of the classroom.

“Throughout the years, a couple students that I have, I have been a mentor to them. We talk from time to time, a few of them even after quite a few years,” Schuth said. “Any sister would be willing to talk to anybody.”

Senior Gao Thao said she was not aware that St. Thomas had nuns on campus.

“That would be nice to actually get some information that they are here,” Thao said.

Junior Byron Synstegaard said he thinks the sisters could provide guidance to other Catholics.

“I’d just be interested in gaining spiritually,” Synstegaard said.

Freshman Jenni Loomis said a sister could offer different perspectives than those of theology professors and priests.

“I think they can offer a different insight on things,” Loomis said.

In total, there are four sisters on campus. They each work with different offices. In addition to Schuth’s Franciscan order, the remaining three sisters represent the Sisters of St. Joseph’s and Sisters of Notre Dame. Schuth said the small number of sisters is because St. Thomas was once an all-male school.

The smaller number of sisters on the St. Thomas campus reflects the overall demographic decrease in nuns over the last 40 years. The number of nuns has decreased by more than 120,000 since 1927, Schuth said. The number of Catholics, however, has risen by more than 20 million since that year. Schuth attributed this decrease to lack of interest of young people in religious life.

“There are so many more opportunities now, I think, for young women,” Schuth said. “The people who join our order, they’re usually a bit older. They’ve had maybe 10 years in a career, and it’s just not enough for them.”

Schuth said this could lead to a further decrease in the number of sisters.

“If we don’t get younger members in some numbers in the next 10 years or so, it’s going to be really hard to get younger people because they won’t have any companions,” Schuth said. “We do have to make some adjustments or there just won’t be that many sisters in the future.”

Rebecca Mariscal can be reached at mari2162@stthomas.edu.