Difference between sisters and nuns?

[cool2bCatholic]

Thanks for the info everyone!
God bless you,
Angela

 

[Michael G]

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11164a.htm

This is not "liberalism" as you describe it. A nun properly speaking is a monastic woman under strict vows. A religious sister is a a female religous under simple vows, but not the same type of vows as a female monastic would take and without the rigor of a monastic rule.

Nuns properly so-called have solemn vows with a strict enclosure, regulated by pontifical law which prevents the religious from going out (except in very rare cases, approved by the regular superior and the bishop), and also the entrance of strangers, even females, under pain of excommunication. Even admission to the grated parlor is not free, and interviews with regulars are subject to stringent rules....After long deliberation, the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars decided (cf. letter of 2 September, 1864, to the Archbishop of Baltimore) that in the United States "nuns" were under simple vows only, except the Visitandines of Georgetown, Mobile, Kaskaskia, St. Louis, and Baltimore, who made solemn profession by virtue of special rescripts. It added that without special indult the vows should be simple in all convents erected in the future.

 

[Polycarp1]

In common parlance, "nun" is the term used for all female members of a religious order living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In point of fact, however, the distinction is made between nuns proper, who live cloistered lives of intercessory prayer and adoration, and sisters, who minister to the community, often as teachers or nurses/health care workers. It's the purpose and function of the different orders that makes the distinction -- two professed women in the same order would not be one a nun and the other a sister. But in my home town, there were three houses: the Sisters of the Precious Blood, who were cloistered nuns, and the Sisters of Mercy and Sisters of St. Joseph, who were respectively a nursing/nursing education order and a teaching order.

 

[cool2bCatholic]

This is not "liberalism" as you describe it.
Of course holding this belief does not make her liberal, sorry if I implied that! She follows some other liberal beliefs is what I meant, and I could've/should've left that word out of my post anyway. :o

I always thought that nuns & sisters and brothers & monks were the same. I suppose I was wrong; thanks for correcting me!

God bless you!
Angela

 

[Carrye]

Well, my dad's liberal Catholic sister (who happens to be my godmother) thinks that sisters are different than nuns, the difference being that nuns are cloistered and sisters are not.

She's right C2bC - nuns are cloistered, sisters are not. That is the difference that defines them. They take the same vows, and so they are not different in that way.

 

[Michael G]

This is not "liberalism" as you describe it.
Of course holding this belief does not make her liberal, sorry if I implied that! She follows some other liberal beliefs is what I meant, and I could've/should've left that word out of my post anyway. :o

I always thought that nuns & sisters and brothers & monks were the same. I suppose I was wrong; thanks for correcting me!

God bless you!
Angela

You are welcome!