a question;

Here is a typical story: (boston globe)
The last two years have seen a remarkable number of sanctions against American nuns, who numbered 56,000 in 2011, down from nearly 180,000 in 1965....


since the average age of the PC sister's leadership conference orders is 72, I have two questions:

One: Have these leaders asked their members if they agree with the leadership?

After all, the Catholic Health association didn't agree with their pc nun on Obamacare.

Two; Are we paying the salaries of these pc nuns by giving money to the retirement program for aged sisters?

(Arch)dioceses submit donations to the National Religious Retirement Office, an organization that applies approximately 93 cents of every dollar donated to financial distributions that assist with the costs of elder care at religious institutes. Roughly seven percent of donations are used for administration, education, and the national annual appeal.

A sister from Texas writes:

"As times goes by, and as the number of our older sisters increase, so do the needs."

ratio of wage-earning to retired religious projected for 2019.

this would look a lot worse if it was done for only the orders of the PC nuns
from Wikipedia: 

The membership of the congregations in the LCWR has been declining rapidly in recent years, both through a lack of any new members in most member congregations and the increasing age of the women that remain. According to the Study on Recent Vocations, the average median age of women in LCWR institutes is 74. Among those who have entered in the past 15 years, 56 percent are over 30.^[5] For these reasons, the membership of the congregations in the LCWR declined from 60,642 in 2007, to 46,451 in 2011, to an estimated 43,664 in 2012.[

looks pretty grim, doesn't it?

unless you are aware of the "other" sisters, who also have a group known as the CMSWR

also from Wikipedia:

According to the 2009 Study on Recent Vocations by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the average median age of nuns and sisters in CMSWR institutes was 60, compared with 74 for those in LCWR; among those joining CMSWR institutes only 15% were over 40, compared with 56% for LCWR institutes; 43% of the CMSWR institutes had at least 5 novices, compared with 9% of the LCWR institutes.^[5][6]

the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. It includes over 1500 women leaders representing over 80% of the 57,000 women religious in the United States

yet the leadership group sounds more like a game of musical chairs than a group with democratic origins:

Sr. Pat Farrell, a vice president of the Sisters of St. Francis of Dubuque, Iowa, and LCWR’s president, said in an interview before last year’s assembly that it was time for women religious to re-examine their calling.
“We are fewer,” Farrell told NCR in August 2011. “It’s time to loosen our perceptions of who we are and listen attentively to what God is calling us to do now.”
Also expected at this year’s LCWR assembly is an annual transition of the group’s top leaders -- their president-elect, president and past-president -- who govern the LCWR collaboratively with the group’s secretary, treasurer and executive director.
In LCWR’s model, a president-elect is elected by the group’s membership at each year’s assembly. Following a year in the position, she automatically succeeds to the presidency, and then to the position of past-president the following year.

maybe that lack of fresh leadership is part of the problem...

To consider those concerns, the 2011 assembly saw the group not focusing on routine matters of administration or finance but rather spending long periods of their time together in silence to contemplate where U.S. religious life may be moving.
Last year’s assembly also saw release of a report on the decline in numbers of women religious in the U.S. with membership in the LCWR, which seemed to indicate the decrease has been fairly rapid in the last few years, with numbers dropping from 60,642 sisters in 2007 to 46,451 in 2011.
At that time, LCWR projected there to be a loss of another 2,787 sisters from the group in 2012...

and then there is this question:

Yet, these IHMs still collect about a quarter of a million dollars a year from the Retirement Fund for Religious.
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/1299/The_Church_and_the_Sisters_...
http://www.earthspiritrising.org/cos

Many laity wonder why they are asked to contribute every year to the collection of the National Religious Retirement Office to help care for retired religious when some of the orders that receive that money spend their funds on activities like last year’s “Earth Spirit Rising” conference that featured self-proclaimed pagan and witch Starhawk.
Also on the financial front, many laity wonder why many orders still beg for
contributions to support their elderly, but seem to find the money to invest in the latest earth-friendly trends?
For example, the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters of Monroe, Michigan accomplished a 56 million dollar “green” renovation of their motherhouse that included building one of the country’s largest geothermal fields consisting of 232 bore holes 450 feet deep to tap into the earth’s heat to warm their buildings.
Yet, these IHMs still collect about a quarter of a million dollars a year from the Retirement Fund for Religious.
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/1299/The_Church_and_the_Sisters_...
http://www.earthspiritrising.org/cosponsors.html
www.retiredreligious.org
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23671932#23759490

ponsors.html

Yet the CMSWR group says it includes ten thousand sisters, whose average age is much lower.

yet that groups includes dying orders too:

Still, CMSWR communities are struggling in many cases, and this should not be ignored. There are a few communities that are bursting at the seams, but it should be noted that this is not the norm.
There are indeed young women with calls to religious life. I think there are many LCWR communities that do not believe this is the case and try to ignore communities that are successful–write them off as it were. Some have said the the CARA study gave the wrong impression. A National Catholic Reporter article says there is a “slight tilting in the direction of traditional groups” (CARA Study Given Wrong Twist). I don’t think that is the case either. The truth lies in the middle. Traditional groups are doing better, and a few much better. The return of women’s religious vocations is happening, but it is, for the most part, gradual.

and this might point to the crux of the problem for all the aging orders:

Now with the average age of women in LCWR communities to be 74 in 2009 (and probably higher now), it seems a bit late in the game to ask for reform, but at the same time, the tremendously negative attitudes toward the Vatican (which were already very negative without the call for reform) among such communities should also not be ignored. Have you ever met a young woman that wanted to spend her life with a group of grumpy old women that hate the Church (or at least the leaders of said Church) that produced the community in the first place? There aren’t many. The “less than 1% under 40″ makes perfect sense.