MANKATO — Elderly nuns face a nettlesome irony.

During their working years, their Spartan lives required minimal finances. But in their retirements, costs for those with nursing-care needs top $50,000 a year.

With too few younger working nuns to adequately help support their far more numerous aging colleagues, and with average Social Security benefits for nuns about one-third that paid to the average U.S. beneficiary, religious orders face perpetual funding challenges.

“And the real crunch time could be coming,” said Sister Janice Bader of Washington, D.C., who directs the national Retirement Fund for Religious.

There are 37,000 Catholic religious order men and women past the age of 70, and 26,000 younger than 70. But 16,000 of those 26,000 are between 60 and 70.

With the numbers of religious so skewed between young and old, religious orders must keep searching for funding streams to support a retiree population that on average lives nearly 10 years longer (86) than the average American (77 1/2).

At the School Sisters of Notre Dame Mankato Province, the median age of its 350 nuns is 73.

“We’re at an all-time high in terms of the number of sisters in need of special care,” said SSND Development Director Sister Lynore Girmscheid, who sounds a note of tempered optimism.

“We’re able to care for the numbers we have, but the numbers are increasing.”

The U.S. average per-person cost of skilled nursing care at religious institutes is $51,361 annually, compared to the overall U.S. average of $55,200.

Since 1988, an annual national fund drive in Catholic parishes has raised more than $550 million, making it the most successful appeal in U.S. Catholic Church history.

During the past two decades, however, the gap between assets available for retirement and the cost of living⁄health care for elderly religious has widened from $2 billion to $9 billion and is expected to further widen.

Hence the need to leave no fundraising mechanism untapped.

Girmscheid said SSND raises retirement funds through fund appeals, ongoing donations from supporters, craft fairs, even women who have left the religious order.

The salaries of working nuns also are funneled into the cause. Girmscheid said her earnings help support three sisters.

Bader said retirement-care costs also are being mitigated through cost-cutting measures nationwide. Those include religious orders selling off or renting out oversized, underutilized buildings, and religious orders collaborating on health care.

Said Girmscheid, “We’re studying our properties throughout the U.S. No doubt that will be part of our accountability.”

Girmscheid said there are no plans to sell the motherhouse property on Good Counsel Hill that has been held by SSND since 1912.