more (full at source): Pressure on the nuns, whose numbers in the US have dwindled in the last four decades from 180,000 to just 60,000, has grown however since the launch of a so-called Apostolic Visitation ordered by the Vatican. With interviews and questionnaires, this is a formal inquiry into the activities of women's religious institutions being conducted by Mother Mary Clare Millea, an American nun who lives in Rome.

In addition, a so-called doctrinal assessment has been ordered by the Vatican into the course being followed by an umbrella group of women's religious orders in the US, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which may not have been toeing the line on issues such as the primacy of the Vatican.