Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church's Betrayal of American Nuns

[LostinVA]

GREAT book.

All the Sisters I've known are hardworking and devout women -- often quite Progressive in many ways -- who have been disrespected and abused by the Church's male hierarchy. They are now facing a horrible retirement care crisis, too. A searing book on how our female Religious have been abandoned.

And, I know some people on here have bad memories of Sisters who taught them, but they are honestly in the minority.

[RedCloud]

1. I inadvertently helped create two nuns...

They switched to some bigger guy after our time together had passed.

I guess I will need a really, really good post mortem lawyer...

[LostinVA]

3. Actually, that'll probably get you some points in Heaven!

[jane_pippin]

2. I just saw that book the other day

and thought it looked good. Maybe the library has it.

I'm not Catholic, but I went to a Catholic college and that's my only nun experience. You're right--they were amazing women and most of them were very progressive. (i.e., the environment, women's rights, civil rights for everyone, confronting poverty--all sorts of things.) Some of them even had a few choice words for the Pope. (One of them, years ago, was doing research at the Vatican but because she was a woman she wasn't allowed to go into a certain part of the archives. She said she didn't do anything, but she really wanted to step into the area just to show them the world wouldn't end if she did.)

This is a little off topic, but it was interesting to talk to them about why they went into the sisterhood, what they thought of it now, and what they think about the decline in new sisters. One of them described it by saying, (and I'm paraphrasing), "Well, the sisterhood is essentially a marriage, and as we can see marriage in general is on the decline. This isn't so different so I'm not surprised at the decline in membership. What we need to do is focus on getting young people to understand our values, and their own, and help them to live those values in the context of the world we're in now. Some may choose to become nuns, some may chose to live those values in other ways. What matters is that young women think they have a place in the world and can contribute in their own way to making it better." She didn't mean values in a religious sense. She meant valuing education, valuing helping people in need, contributing in some sense to the community, etc. I don't know that I'm doing what she said justice, but it made sense at the time and I felt lucky to know people like her. I still do. :)

Anyway, thanks for the recommend. It's added to the ever-growing "to read" list.

[LostinVA]

4. Your post was very interesting!

And very much like my own experiences talking to the Sisters. I hate that the only contact some people have had with these intelligent, interesting, vibrant (and usually quite feminist!) women is some horrible teacher in trade school...

[xmas74]

5. Sounds like a fantastic read.

I'll keep an eye out for it.

[Katina]

6. i think your assessment of the sisters

depends on how old you are and which orders you were exposed to. The nuns in certain orders were just plain nasty. I started catholic school at 5 in 1958. The nuns I had for elementary school were horrible, repressed and aggressive as all get out. The nuns I had in HS were great..progressive and promoted women's rights. The nuns I had in college used to be known as a tough order, but not physically abusive, just demanding excellence as they demanded it from themselves. I had no problem with them. They were not exactly progressive, but damn, they were brilliant women. I think what happened is that fewer women were forced into the convent (forced due to family finances) and those who became nuns really wanted to do it.
However, it is obscene how the church craps on these women who have been the ones to do most of their ministering and teaching. How typical of a patriarchial dogmatic society. Glad I left it.

[LostinVA]

7. I'm 41

I think MANY "evil nuns in grade and high school" derived from something you mentioned in your post: young girls were often basically forced into becoming nuns by parental and parish pressure. And, I know for a fact, many of them were forced into then becoming teachers, even when they didn't want to be, or have the temperament, or even have the education. I think this resulted in many depressed and very angry women, who took out these feelings on their students... disgusting behavior, although understandable in some cases (although I'm not excusing the behavior).

Remember: Martha was incarcerated with one of the elderly nuns imprisoned for protesting at a military site.

Good post, btw!

[Katina]

8. I'm 53

and 12 years makes a huge diffence in the womens movement. Thanks for the book recommendation, it sounds really good. For the record, my two favorite HS nuns ended up leaving the convent & got married. Last I heard, they are still teaching.