Woman leaves 10 children to become a nun.

She was basically in jail. Can’t speak, can’t touch, behind iron bars.

Can gay men become monks ?

Religion is a mental illness. Who walks away from their kids for this shit? Sick.

What is it she can't face?

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

In effect, the 10 kids were orphaned. I find that really tragic. On that level of 'devotion', religion is a cult.

Women had no lifestyle choices. Joining a religious order was often the only way to save themselves from dying in childbirth or of illnesses brought on by overwork. They couldn't turn to their families, social services and self-support were non-existent. A religious order provided food, shelter and relief from a society that relegated them to a life of endless drudgery.

FWIW she was in her 60s when she entered the convent.

What r7 said. And she didn't enter the convent until her kids were grown (and I guess her husband was dead?), and frankly, after bringing up 10 kids, even I can see the charm a life of nothing but rest, quiet and contemplation might hold.

For those who didn't bother to read - She was widowed five years and the children were grown and gone. She may have been terrified of facing life alone after living with 11 people. What's mind boggling is that she must have led a full life to have 800 people at her going away party. What a waste

“My cooter is retired! Done! Take my womb parasites and bring me another lover! Jesus - the blond version....”

Of course, her clit still speaks sign language and the other whores can only complain about it for 30 minutes a day.

[quote]She may have been terrified of facing life alone after living with 11 people.

OR . . . having devoted most of her life to 11 other people, she wanted to do something for herself for her remaining years.

For much of human history, this wouldn’t seem at all unusual. Many widows of powerful men founded their own religious orders and entered a life of seclusion, and less wealthy women viewed it in the same way as we would view any career: they felt lucky to be accepted into a nunnery.

I find this woman’s choice of a life of self-denial to be pretty sad, but that’s because I am not religious at all. She must have felt a yearning for it for a long time.

Religion is creepy.

She was in her early 60s when she entered the convent. Madonna could play her. My name is sister Dita and I'll be your mistress tonight.

The headline was misleading. It made it sound like she abandoned her children. She did not. She raised them and then decided to live life for herself. If she had traveled the world and hardly ever seen her kids then no one would bat an eye. She decided to instead stay in a cloister. An odd choice, but valid. I am sure her kids and grandchildren would have loved to have seen her more, and so as such it is a bit selfish. But, better to be selfish than selfless.

Not remotely Christian and sort of against Abrahamic religions, but even so back in the day I would have considered joining a convent for the reasons R7 describes.

Being gay, being somewhat asexual/autistic, and not wanting to risk a socially-mandated and potentially life-threatening childbirth (my mother almost died giving birth to my disabled now-dead sister) would make a quiet celibate segregated life of gardening and prayer and choral song the most attractive choice pre-20th Century.

Thankfully the last couple of hundred years have given many (though not all, and not enough) women other options and greater freedoms.

[quote]Woman leaves 10 children to become a nun.

The only good reason to be a catholic that I have ever heard.

Nun=WHORE

Was she a flying nun ?

at least she didn't kill them

[quote]She was kind of an unusual nun. She didn’t sing very well. She was frequently late to her required duties around the convent. She threw sticks for the communal dogs which was not allowed.

Was she also a flibbertigibbet?

A will-o-the-wisp?

There are easier ways to escape your children.

I remember this story from when she joined the Carmelite order. She was a well known San Francisco socialite, and it was big news in the Family section.

I’ve been to paradise but I’ve never been to me!!!! 🍾 🛥

[quote] When their mother said she was entering a convent, the children had mixed reactions, but even the most supportive ones didn't try to talk her out of going. "We're all a lot better off with her gone, and I think everybody would admit to that," Mark said.

“We're all a lot better off with her gone”

Prince Philip's nutty mother Princess Alice or whatever - became a nun late in life (after spending quite a bit of time in mental institutions).

In her latter years, she padded around Buckingham Palace in her gray habit, appearing at functions and such. She basically abandoned Philip and he wandered around staying with relatives - in one guest register at some rich nobleman's house, he said his residence was "no fixed abode"

R6, adults are not "orphaned."

Once your children are grown up and moved out, your reprehensibility is done.

A secure retirement plan.

Mark’s pissed because he didn’t score the jewelry or the paintings. He should have thought about Mother before letting Nancy bob on his knob.

“I couldn’t help it; she was like a whippet thrusting her face in my crotch!”

[quote] Can gay men become monks ?

I think a better question is can straight men?

Good question, R32. "Bishop" Pat Buckley's blog is an unintentionally hilarious chronicle of homosexuality in the Church, replete with bad spelling, flame wars in the comments section and lurid stories.

I’d love to join a monastery after my husband goes. But I think I’ll be too old. Maybe if I give them my 401k?

[quote]Once your children are grown up and moved out, your reprehensibility is done.

Personally, my reprehensibility WILL NEVER BE DONE.

R34, the article states she gave Christ a dowery. I’m pretty sure there’s a price to pay - especially now that she’s 90.

I hope to christ he didn't spend it all in one place.

Was she still a virgin?

Do they make virgins anymore?

She’s catholic, R38; I don’t think she can even claim anal virginity.

Given a choice between ten kids and 5,000 grandkids and a convent... I'd take the convent!

But yeah, in centuries past, it was common enough for upper-class widows to join the posher sort of convent rather than staying where their daughter-in-law had become the lady of the house. The posh convents were a bit like the sort of gentlemen's clubs (where widowers would sometimes move permanently), a lady could have an apartment of her own, the convent had servants to do all the cooking and cleaning and she didn't have to manage the staff herself, a lady could pray all day, or mix the prayers with study, recieving visitors, creating devotional art, write letters or books, etc. Some female intellectuals joined that sort of convent, because that was the only place they could experience the life of the mind.

Misleading headline.

She’s done her womanly “duty” and deserves to do whatever she likes with the rest of her life.

We all worship the virgin in our own way.

A Dutch cap would've been the best way to not start a family, babe.

R41, Ronald Firbank's Princess Zoubaroff refers to this. Novelist Blanche Negress (author of Lesbia, or Would He Understand) finds it hard to write in hotels with all their distractions, so she joins a convent.

Thanks for providing a background.

[quote] The posh convents were a bit like the sort of gentlemen's clubs (where widowers would sometimes move permanently), a lady could have an apartment of her own, the convent had servants to do all the cooking and cleaning and she didn't have to manage the staff herself

But she had none of those luxuries. She became a silent nun who lived in a jail cell behind bars. She couldn’t talk, or touch anyone and had to stay behind the bars. What kind of life is that?

She was a rich socialite whose father started PG&E so she has billions. So it’s not like she joined a convent because of money reasons.

R46, it is the life she chose.

Sometimes, that's all you can say, people like what they like. Hell, I like birdwatching.

R48 in this context reminds me of an unforgettable performance of Messiaen’s Saint François d'Assise I saw at the Paris Opera. Monks AND birds.

I feel ya, Sista

Some days I wish everyone would take a vow of silence

She identified as a Carmelite nun...how dare you judge her!

Some days r50?

Did she give all her money to the Church?

What a horrific, self-aggrandizing mother/cunt she was after all those years of being a horrific, self-absorbed socialite.

She always managed to make it about her. Completely unable to fathom humility in its most basic form, even after being cloistered. What a relief her children must have felt when such a divisive egomaniac checked out.

Her "soul," if one was ever available & accessible to her, is of a life form needing so much attention, it dries its family out while gaining preternatural amounts of attention from Hollywood likes as the divorced Ronald Reagan who married her good friend Nancy while future this future nuncunt screeched at her own children & threw them out of the family house as she purchased all sorts of luxury goods in SF, LA, London, etc. boutiques with gay men in her tow.

Venal, vulgar, stupid, superficial and demeaning of true Christian/Catholic causes, she feared for her soul & thought she could buy herself into the kingdom of heaven after being a dipsomanaical society bitch who rejected her children badly for non-Catholic marriages while slavishly pursuing the adulterous Reagans.

What a mother/fatherfucker. She thought 30 nun years could eradicate the horrid, awful person she always was? Heh. Privilege seems to bring about a whole new fangled morality that this class believes should should mute scripture.

Can you imagine Satan poking Sr. Mary Joseph around in his Barbeque pit: "So your husband was the creator, voice, and vision for PG&E while you shopped & dropped MILLIONS?" It would be deserving and worthy of PPV.

Did she get away with being a lifelong bitch and then some by disappearing? At least her kids and grandkids were spared Narcissistic grandma who only answered to "God' in Des Plaines, IL 2000 miles away..

Yikes r54, which one of the 10 are you?

What a weird, pointless rant R54 subjected us to, at least the part I read.

Please read r25 before coming to conclusions.

This woman's hypocrisy and abject hatred toward her own family to the point of forcibly estranging them and their children was pretty awful. Yes! She refused to meet her children's non-Catholic spouses and HER OWN FLESH & BLOOD before joining the Carmelites. They were nothing to her because they were not Catholics and, according to her, had performed acts of fornication because the marriages weren't Church-certified.

And she rejected her own divorced children, writing them off as she sought a close friendship with blow job Nancy Reagan and her divorced husband Ronny.

She only allowed son in the OP back because the 2nd marriage was Catholic & sanctioned by the church while first was not Catholic & therefore unholy & unrecognizable.

Yep. Sister was a long-standing cunt who tried to have it her own way, each and every step of the way...

If giving away her one-of-a-kind painted silk parasols can't get her into the Kingdom of Heaven, what will? Genuine humility or kindness not based on wealth? By all accounts, she never learned that in the cloister.

I suspect this Sister is going to spend an eternity in an elevator going between "Hosiery/Foundations/Nightwear" and "Purgatory" and still cannot figure out why she's not guaranteed an elevator to the very TOP!

R54's mother gets my deepest sympathy, you know she gets the worst of the rage.

She's obviously one of those for whom religion is a mental illness. She's probably in the best place. Someone like that does not need to be out among the public. And there's little mental health treatment could do for people that crazy.

[quote]She's obviously one of those for whom religion is a mental illness.

This implies that there is one for whom religion is not a mental illness.

No, not all religious people are mentally ill. They're just people who really want to believe that God is real. Their beliefs have been drummed into them since childhood in most cases. Gullible, yes. Crazy, no.

Shew sounds like a complete whore. She and her husband must have been fucking non stop. No wonder she thought she needed to devote her life to God.

"No, not all religious people are mentally ill."

No but they must have some developmental disability. I get the people who run the churches carrying on with the charade -it's money and power (as much as power is an aphrodisiac for the feeble minded) but normal healthy adults don't have a need for religion.

Hell, I'd fly into space if I had 10 children!

Grifting nuns siphon $835,000 from school funds to fuel Vegas gambling junkets.

"The Sound of Money" Oscar bait with G and Yuh-Jung Youn?

Why only ten kids?