Elderly Catholic nuns get care at Jewish nursing home

With fewer young women devoting their lives to religious orders, and the escalating health care needs of those who are already nuns, a Bronx facility offers a solution.

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Sister Rosemarie Bittermann, 92, a Roman Catholic nun, at the Jewish Home Lifecare in the Bronx borough of New York. Photo by AP

By The Associated Press | May 25, 2015 | 4:50 PM

For 98-year-old Sister Angela Rooney, it was one of the most jarring moves of her life.

She always thought she would live out her days as she had for decades, in a convent under the time-honored Roman Catholic tradition of younger nuns dutifully caring for their older sisters.

But with few young women choosing religious life, her church superiors were forced to look elsewhere for care, and in the past year have sent Rooney and dozens of other nuns to Jewish Home Lifecare, a geriatric-care complex in the Bronx founded as a nursing home for elderly Jews.

“I wanted my convent, my great big chapel, my Stations of the Cross,” Rooney said. “The very name ‘Jewish Home’ turned me off. … I don’t think anyone came here with a heavier heart than me.”

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.658027