The popular notion that more and more women in their 20s and 30s are flocking to the cloistered life does not reflect reality, researchers say. Only a small number of young, Catholic women are entering orders, and they’re mostly choosing to be religious sisters engaged in the community rather than nuns in a closed, contemplative environment.

There aren’t droves of millennial women professing their faith and becoming religious sisters with vows of obedience, celibacy and poverty — contrary to recent news reports.

“There’s much more to the story,” said Mary Gautier, senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a nonprofit research center at Georgetown University that studies the Catholic Church.

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