Sister Kathleen Steadman, 65, is the vocation director for the community.
Between 150 and 200 live in the congregation's retirement home in Brentwood, according to Sister Mary Walsh, the vocation director.
The vocation director outlined the charges in an internal memorandum in 1986, but no action was taken against the priests.
Sister Kathleen Steadman, vocation director for the group, said one approach to recruitment was through ads placed in magazines aimed at people interested in religious vocations.
That journey, which begins with discussions with a vocation director, enters a second stage when both parties decide that it is time to apply formally.
At the Sisters of Mercy, an international order with 5,700 members in 12 countries, first there are periodic discussions between a prospective nun and a vocation director for six months to a year.
"The bottom line is that they're operating outside the umbrella of the church," said the Rev. Thomas P. Nydegger, the vice rector at Immaculate Conception Seminary in South Orange, N.J., and former vocation director for the Archdiocese of Newark.
As East Coast vocation director for the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Sister Ann has presided over two previous such weekends, informal get-togethers during which young women considering a vocation can learn what life is like for a modern-day nun.
As the vocation director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn in the late 1980's, the Rev. Fernando Ferrarese spent most of his time preaching about the shortage of young men entering the priesthood and what it might mean for parish life: churches without pastors, neighborhoods without churches, fewer Masses, frustrated priests.
Father Fitzpatrick started working as the diocesan vocations director about two years ago when Bishop Daily asked him to take the job.
