Nuns Redux
By Beth Quinn
Welcome back to Nunville.
We’re talking about nuns for the second week in a row here because it seems there’s some enduring interest in Catholic nuns (mostly positive) and a shared anger on their behalf.
I learned this through my e-mail after last week’s column about the fact that the Vatican has ordered an investigation of American nuns, many of whom have joined the real world in the past few decades, since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The intention of this modern-day inquisition appears to be to reel the nuns in and force them back into a more cloistered existence to serve as slave labor for the Church.
Get thee back to the nunnery, women!
Despite my own bad childhood experience with a nun who told me my dead dog wouldn’t get into heaven, I have since grown to love and respect most of the nuns I’ve come to know. I also feel like starting an uprising on their behalf now that the good ole boys in Rome are gunning for them.
A number of readers have strong feelings of their own on the issue. Read on.
Hi Beth.
Boy, did this column about nuns hit home. Until the death of the older one, I had two sisters in the convent.
The other one was fired. You read that right – fired after more than 50 years as a woman religious by a Bishop who felt they didn’t “share the same vision” for the diocese.
Her family and fellow nuns rallied round and today she is busier than ever, but it must have been a real test of her faith. It remains the only time I ever heard her choke up.
You are right to place your money on the “good sisters.” The changes wrought by Vatican II are like a bell that no one can un-ring. There’s a greater chance that the Pope will take a bride than that these educated, resourceful women will march single file back into the cloister. – Kathy Garvey
Beth.
I’m also a recovering Catholic (and it’s a lifelong recovery), and I’d like to see those women drag that increasingly irrelevant institution into the 21st century. – Larry Byrne
Beth.
While I too, am generally not in the habit (no pun intended, but it works) of commenting about the life of nuns, I found your piece it be thought-provoking.
If it is accurate that the population of these sometimes gentle, often well meaning and always delusional ladies has decreased by two thirds in modern times then, I submit, there is cause for hope. Only when there are only a few dozen remaining will I feel comfortable. These women can do all of their good works without being betrothed to God, and the drunken, pedophile priests should do their own housekeeping.
But no dogs in heaven??? Was she serious? In my opinion, if there is a heaven it is run by dogs, and only those who treat them and their kindred spirits here on earth with the decency and respect that is their due are permitted in.
A fine reason to leave the church! As good as any other that I have ever heard. Would that Galileo had thought of it. – Howard
Beth.
Love your piece. I am an anti-religious who was married to a liberal Roman Catholic who, after confession, would lean into her confessor and demand to know why the Church did not permit women to be priests and why they could not marry, etc. etc.
One Saturday she returned from confession, smoke coming from her ears. The priest had told her, “I will pray for your conversion.” – Fred of Ithaca
Note to Fred:
Love your story about your wife’s confession. I had some terrible moments in confession myself, but the one that stands out was my own fault. As a young teenager, I was not allowed to shave my legs, so I used Nair on my legs – a product that removes hair and stinks to high heaven. Literally. (To this day, I don’t understand why putting a chemical on my legs was OK, but I couldn’t touch a razor to my skin. Be that as it may …)
One day, I used it directly before going to confession and must not have washed it off thoroughly. The smell of it filled the booth and must have surely wafted over to the priest’s side, for he interrupted my confession and said, “Say 10 Hail Mary’s and 3 Our Father’s. Go now.” – Beth
Beth.
I am not Catholic, but in many ways, what you said applies to all religions including my own. (Think Kyriat Joel.) You said something that was needed and essential. – David
Hi Beth.
Thanks for that column on nuns. My aunt is a gym teacher/nun in Queens. She has given her life to the community for 35 years.
She and other sisters help run an undisclosed women’s shelter for New York City. The women and their children live there. My aunt and her fellow sisters watch their children while the women attend high school/college, allowing them to pursue a career that will help them support their families.
Every year we attend a dinner and fundraiser helping support this shelter. A woman always attends to tell her success story. Sadly, the nuns are now elderly and will soon pass this women-only project over to the city.
I was offended to see the New York Times article about the Church’s investigation of nuns (still a good ole boys party).Thank you for writing your opinion. I just wanted to write one story that needed to be told. – Mary
From Beth.
I love these stories. Thank you. I’d like to end with one more nun story of my own.
When I was a health writer for the local newspaper, I grew to depend on the medical expertise of Dr. Jerry Quint, who was then a surgeon at St. Anthony Community Hospital in Warwick. He made himself available to answer any questions I might have – any time I might have them. He became my great, good friend.
The only problem was, I could rarely quote him accurately in the newspaper because his colorful language wasn’t deemed appropriate for print. But the Internet rules are different. Actually, I don’t think there are any rules, so I can quote him accurately here.
I was writing a story about Catholic hospitals, and I called Quint and asked him whether he or other doctors felt restricted by working in a Catholic institution and having to follow some of the Church’s rules.
He didn’t exactly answer the question. What he did say, though, was this:
“You know what I love about the nuns here? They are not full of shit.”
Believe me, there is no higher praise.
Beth can be reached at beth@zestoforange.com.
Tags: Beth Quinn
July 29th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Boy; I haven’t seen an obvious nun for years. I kind of thought that in this more modern world, they realized that women are second class in catholicism, or in most religions for that matter. I’m a recovering catholic and now a devout atheist.
It seems that the only women allowed in the Vatican are the ones who scrub the floors or cook the meals. In islam, women have few rights and in judaism many of the flavors provide little rights for women as well. With women being second class in all three major religions, it surprises me why most women have not cast off these superstitions for rational reason. But hey; it’s just my .02.
I have hope for society yet however.
August 2nd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Hello Beth!
Thank you for the wonderfully written balanced piece.
Some people love nuns and have happy memories.
Some people will support their present quest and others will vilify them. Those that vilify will never understand their courage.
I support these particular women as far as seeing that their eyes have been opened. Maybe. Because they still want to be part of the RC Church. But who am I to criticize women striving to make something better?
I am neutral. (maybe not)
Perhaps relating some of my experiences with nuns wold be amusing.
Grade 1: Sister Celeste. Famous for removing ALL the clothes of boys who went out at recess and got wet playing in the snow. She would put them behind a cabinet until their clothes dried on the radiator.
Never gave them a blanket. They had to stay behind that cabinet on their knees praying for forgiveness for the sin of getting wet while playing.
Grade 2: Sister Christine. Slapped any child in the face with a steel edged ruler if they took notes or had their head down for any reason. The Children MUST gaze her in rapt attention while she was talking or face her wrath. I still have the scare on my forehead that required stitches because I wrote down a note to remember what she was saying and got justice served.
Grade 3: Sister Sabinella. Rotund and jolly she had mood swings of explosive rage. She would throttle boys with a yard stick, lock them in a dark cabinet, beat their knuckles raw, and threaten that if parents were told she would damn them to hell. Their hideous crime (?): they were boys. A day did not go by when we witness a bare-assed beating of some unfortunate male child. How humiliating to be stripped of your pants and then beaten in front of the class because you did not answer a question fast enough. She used to seat the children that she did not like at the back of the class so she would not have to see “their ugly Satan faces”.
Grade 4: Sister Eugene. Because she was the principle, she was hardly in class. Instead Sister Marcelina took her place for teaching. 5′ 10′ and 213 pounds she threw her weight around like a WWF wrestler.
Sister Marcelina’s claim to fame: punching girls in the chest when they were “insubordinate”. She broke the sternum of a girl who was an eight grader because she took too long in the girls’ room. We called her Sister Mussolini. She sent more than one girl to the hospital in her five years at that Catholic grade school.
Sister Eugene was the one who told me that dogs (all animals for that matter) have no souls. Because they have no souls we could do with them whatever we want. Tell THAT to a modern Vegan and PETA. I bet all animal abusers would use her words to justify their cruelty.
Grade 5: Sister Virginette. Beat me with her fists because I started my period and asked her for a nickle to buy a napkin from the dispenser. I was punished because I was now DIRTY. I would never be an angel again (her words). I called my dad from the payphone to come get me. I needed two weeks of bed rest to recover. I refused to go back to that class. I went on to sixth grade because I taught myself the lessons, took the tests and passed, and made it to the finals in the state science fair. Sister Virginette had a child out of wedlock with a priest from St. Frances parish and was transferred.
Grade 6: Sister Sylvanette: Her OBSESSION was blacks marks on the floor. Everyday at 2 pm she made everyone get on their knees with a pencil eraser and scrub off the black marks on the floor while reciting the rosary. She would scream “BLACK MARKS, BLACK MARKS; like your back souls”.
Sister Pauline: Taught math. Used the favorite weapon of all mentally convoluted nuns, the ruler, to dispense justice. I felt so sorry for the boys whose knuckles were left bleeding. She abandoned her nun vocation and presently resides with her female lover.
Sister Ezekiel: Taught my brother in fourth grade. I went to the girls room one day and saw her beating my brother in the hall with the cast on her broken arm. I rushed up and pushed her down. I called my dad at work. He picked us up. My brother needed 12 stitches on the back of his head, had a concussion and several abrasions on his face and neck. I was suspended from school for pushing a nun. My father started to press charges against her and she was transferred and protected by the Church. (much like the Pedophile Priests; Sinead O’Connor was right)
Grade 7: Lay Teacher. No incidents. Coincidence?
Grade 8: Sister Michael. The chauffeur for the convent. Threatened and actually fulfilled the threat to take children who misbehaved to The House of the Good Shepherd to be sold (so she claimed). She used a legitimate orphanage to terrify us into submission. She said our parents would never find us. The students taken away and brought back told tales of how they begged her on their knees to bring them back. (do a search, it is still open: House of the Good Shepherd (315) 235-7700 Serving Yorkville, NY)
These were the kind of women parents entrusted their children to in Catholic School. And if you or your parents complained you were subject to THE DISCIPLINE. No one complained after experiencing that. How could adults let this stuff be tolerated? They were brainwashed by the Church. Most paretns back then punished their children AGAIN if they knew nuns dispensed discipline for a transgression.
At age 56 I still cannot purge these nightmarish memories (I usually ignore them).
My apologies for not being able to be as objective, nonjudgmental, and balanced in my view as you are. But then that is why I admire such a great person as yourself.
zircon