(RNS) — When Martha Buser joined the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, Kentucky, at 18 years old in 1949, she entered a community of 600 women dedicated to God. But today, the community that was founded by St. Angela Merici and emphasizes education for women and girls, has only 33 members left in Kentucky, and their median age is 85.
“What seemed so secure and a forever thing, you start to realize, no, it’s not,” said Morgan Atkinson, a filmmaker who has documented the Ursuline order for nearly four decades and has followed Buser’s life closely. “What does that say about our culture today, that, good or bad, people no longer are wanting to join in this mission, in this vocation?”
Atkinson’s latest film, “In the Company of Change,” is both a tribute to Buser, who died in 2023 at age 92, and an exploration of the societal and ecclesial shifts that reshaped Catholic religious life in America over the past 75 years. The one-hour documentary premiered Sept. 14 on PBS Kentucky.
The film is in many ways an extension of Atkinson’s 1987 film “A Change in Order,” which investigated the lives of the Ursuline sisters after the dramatic changes of the Second Vatican Council. It is also a tribute to Buser, who at one point served as …