Is anyone else fascinated by nuns?

[quote]When life gets tough some dream about escaping to a carribean island ... but I dream of finding refuge in the ordered and disciplined life of a convent.

You can do BOTH, OP!!

The name says it.

I get it. it looks so peaceful and serene. The truth is different. Not all religious orders are cloistered (shut off from the outside world) Running schools, hospitals and shelters for the destitute is hard work and being a nun, there is no material reward. nuns in war zones have been raped and murdered by advancing troops.

What is more, the insistence on suppressing the ego and random imposition of self-sacrifice is akin to psychological torture. If you become closer to one of your sisters (not even in a sexual way) they will drive you apart. If you have a musical talent, they will often forbid you from playing music. It is a community where snitching and humiliation are encouraged. One of your sisters may notice that you appear grumpy when forced to wake up at 4 AM for morning prayers. She will tell. Now you have to get up at 3:30 AM and be smiling as soon as you leave your cell. One of your sisters notices that you use a heaping teaspoon of sugar in your morning coffee with milk. Now it's only plain . black coffee for you. It has eased somewhat recently as women can live independent lives without a husband.

Not really. I went to Catholic school and a few of my teachers were actually nuns. Lots of nuns are out in the world, pretty much.

No...and I never understood nun dolls. What were *they* about?

[quote]I dream of finding refuge in the ordered and disciplined life of a convent. Walking around the scenic church garden, the smell of old wood, and creaking floorboards. It seems so idyllic and quaint.

Fascinated how, OP? Based on your description, it sounds like you're more interested in the environment than the nuns living there.

In my observation, committing to the life of a nun is comparative to joining the military. Your life becomes controlled by the diocese. No autonomy. Long hours, hard work. Exhausting.

I had nuns for 8 years in elementary school, and they were the meanest, scariest, most sadistic creatures known to man.

Sister Jean D'Arc, and Sister DePaul were the worst.

Nasty...

Only the nuns in "The Nun's Story "and "The Trouble with Angels"

Why did Catholic orders of nuns live in such poverty when popes & cardinals lived in such profligate luxury? Why didn’t the Church's money get distributed more equitably? That always seemed such an irreligious system.

No. I was brought up Catholic and I joked to one that she had a bad habit. She complained to my parents.

Mother Superior is working at her desk when a young nun bursts in to her office all upset...

"Mother Superior, Mother Superior I just saw a naked man! What shall I do?"

"Calm down, sister and go to the chapel and wash your eyes with Holy water"

A few minutes later another young nun burst into Mother Superior's office...

"Mother Superior, Mother Superior, I just touched a naked man! What shall I do?

"Calm down, sister and go to the chapel and wash your hands with Holy water"

So at the chapel there's one young nun washing her eyes and another washing her hands in Holy water when in bursts a third nun...

"Move over, girls, this one's got to gargle" 😏

Calling Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz!

"Divina Lysi"...

I wouldn't mind being part of a monastic life. I get it, OP. At 70, I would be hard pressed to find a monastery that would accept me but it's a world that always had a pull at me. I've always had a bit of a problem with obedience, though so it remains a nice fantasy.

They don't get nun.

No thanks.

I hear their pussies are ice cold... I guess I'll have to grab one and see.

I know what you mean, OP. And I’m an atheist! Realistically though I think it would be a very stressful way to live even though it looks peaceful. Your life would not be your own.

OP I've gone on self directed retreats at monasteries. They were great but after 4 to 5 days it gets hard. You really have to have it together spiritually and psychologically before making any permanent commitment. But OP I think and daydream about it all the time. You're not alone.

I've also sometimes daydreamed of retiring to a monastic way of life. Of course what I'm drawn to is the crumbling convent architecture, the bucolic setting, the idea of not being of this world, the silence.

But everyone else on this thread has described the reality.

Very true and well put, r21.

OP is foolish

When I was five years old my mother took me to see The Sound of Music and I believed all nuns were just like the nuns in the movie, to the point of believing they all had beautiful voices and could sing. 🥴.

Do any live truly peaceful lives? They are the worker bees of the Catholic Church.

I had a nun in 4th Grade, Sister Mary Roslyn, who talked to her curious 9 year olds about living in the convent next to our school. The sisters could only drink Fresca - remember that - for a soft drink. They went as groups to the grocery on a tight budget. They used toothpaste until the last squeeze. I always admired and believed their sacrifices. Then our parish priest would visit my parents, they'd have him to dinner, a giant roast beef was made with all the fixins, and we had to have his favorite booze, Crown Royal, and he consumed a lot of it, and took home a complimentary bottle as a gift. The nuns in the order were totally submissive to this guy, and it never seemed right.

I’m Scottish, and when I was at school we still had corporal punishment in the form of a thick leather strap known as the “belt”. The most most enthusiastic abuser of children at my school was a nun, my History teacher. She was an animal. She would belt the entire class across the palms of their hands for the slightest misbehaviour. Bride of Christ my arse.

Another nun, my French teacher, was the kindest and most generous hearted woman you could ever meet.

R3, you seem to know your stuff, so may I ask if the same sort of the same sort of psychological torture in the name of "humility" goes on in monasteries, as well as convents? Is it just women who are put through this particular misery?

Because of course, every Datalounger has seen "The Nun's Story", and has seen the scene where Audrey Hepburn, who has spent her life planning to become a missionary nurse in the back of beyond, is told by her Mother Superior to fail her nursing exams. Because excellence in a nun was considered "prideful", and that was inexcusable even if it saved a lot of lives.

I'm with R16, the older I get the more I like the idea of a monastic life... except for that prayer shit!

I want to retire to a place in the country where I do my bit for a collective farm or bakery or whatever, then I'm fed communal meals, and retire to my own bedroom. Huh, maybe what I want is a commune...

My father's sister is a nun. She's what they used to call 'Mother Superior' at her convent. For someone who's taken a vow of poverty, she's got one hell of a life. She travels constantly, mainly to conferences and things like that as she's pretty high up in education (she writes text books and works on curriculum boards). I believe her salary is paid into the convent but the wants for nothing. Everywhere she goes she gets free accommodation at a local convent and if she travels wearing her habit, she's always upgraded to first class (in Catholic countries at least).

I think there are still some cloistered orders out there but the majority of nuns are very active and have full-time jobs.

We were once out driving around Galway and she asked if I wanted to see Kylemore Abbey. So we turned up and there were coaches and tourists everywhere, queuing up to get in. She just drove straight past them all, spoke to someone on the intercom and we were whisked through and given a free three course meal in the restaurant and a private tour.

That said, she did spend a couple of years in El Salvador during the war, which must have been pretty harrowing. As nuns go, she's pretty cool.

r28 I assume there is less of it for both nuns and monks nowadays as they are both desperate for new recruits. That being said, the same rules often apply however there was a genuine belief that women's souls are inherently evil (Eve and the Apple) and must be crushed into obedience

I am fascinated by Buddhist nuns

I see nuns often in my city which has 15 convents of cloistered nuns, down from a once much higher number. They are seen in pairs in the streets tending to any necessary outside business. Some convents can be visited to different extents: a church open on certain hours with the nuns sometimes visible behind iron caged windows for times when the space is, in a sense, shared; others sell traditional baked goods through ancient turnstile windows; others operate a small museum where or allow guided tours where access to parts of the convent is controlled through electronic gate and door locks via intercom. Some nuns on the street can be a bit jolly, others avoid eye contact with passersby. The few cloistered nuns I have met were exceptionally kind and polite and liked to laugh. They had a reserve, obviously, but I also found them refreshingly direct.

The convents and monasteries are spectacular places, truly beautiful, organized around several, sometimes many patios or courtyards each of a different character.

Poking around in old churches I meet many more priests, usually ancient and excited for a chance to talk (their congregations having dwindled to a handful of old people.) Many of them have lived and travelled widely and to curious places, know a few languages well, and often know something of art and architecture and who knows what else. I've had interesting conversations and never about religion or faith.

OP, I get what you are saying. There are religious orders that offer the 'experience' to paying guests. This one in New Mexico is a silent order of monks. No talking. I think it would be awesome! Give it a try and let us know.

I love ecclesiastical architecture, the music and art but there is no way I would subject myself to the power structures of the church which have caused so much harm to their victims.

I love the idea of solitude though. One of the few sources of unhappiness in my life is the pity I sense from some of my family and friends just because I like to be alone much of the time. I think some people crave solitude, whereas the vast majority see it as equating to loneliness and fear it. I’m in the former group, but surrounded by the latter!

I’ve been there, R34, and it’s lovely. It is truly in the middle of nowhere.

The monastery is 13 miles from the main road.

Lovely photos here.

R31 and R33, thanks.

There are a few contemplative orders left where nuns dress in their medieval or early modern habits, but most nuns today do not wear habits and have more active roles as educators and activists.

When I think of nuns today, I remember the Maryknoll nuns who were murdered in El Salvador in 1980, Sr. Helen Prejean the advocate for abolition of the death penalty, or my Mom's college friend who entered her order in the early 1950s, but who in the 60s ran a school in Africa, and in the 80s and 90s served as a chaplain in the SUNY system.

Study after study shows that those women in contemplative orders are by and large happier than the average person, despite the supposed psychological toll of their lives expressed in some posts on this thread.

Read Rumer Godden's "In This House of Brede" for a good read on the contemplative life right before and after Vatican II. A&E in the 80s or 90s also aired a good, dramatic series on an Australian convent during that time period.

I once asked my Mom's friend if conventual life when she entered was like that depicted in "The Nun's Story." She said yes, and then related a story about the Grand Silence. When processing to bed, she and her fellow novices/postulants encountered a sign at the top of the stairs. It read, "There shall be no intercourse beyond this point." They burst out laughing.

^^^^Meant R30, not R31. Sorry, R31!

I have two aunts who are nuns (one on each side of the family). One belongs to the Carmelites, and it is what the OP is describing. She basically just prays and grows food all day. We rarely get to see her, and the setup is odd. There is a room at the monastery for visitors and we can see here there, but that's it. She rarely leaves (usually for medical stuff) and we can't go back into the monastery. It is very like the movie "Agnes of God".

My other aunt, a Sister of Mercy, sits on the boards of multiple hospitals, loves to drive her e-bike (at 70), has been arrested for protesting multiple times, has traveled all over the world, and is kind of loud/obnoxious. I have never seen her in a habit (my parents told me she wore one for her ... whatever - confirmation? - but that's it).

As R3 mentioned, it really varies by the order.

My widowed aunt wanted to join the Franciscan Order in Oldenburg, Indiana after her husband died. She had 3 kids and tons of grandchildren and her kids were horrified. She dropped the idea after a bout with cancer. She was always at the church, as a Eucharistic Minister, sewing the priest's garments, organizing the very few new priest candidates, and rarely had time for her children so I thought they were wrong in shaming her from becoming a late in life nun.

Fascinating thread OP. I've enjoyed reading every reply.

No, but I'm then not female.

[quote] The sisters could only drink Fresca - remember that - for a soft drink.

R26 I don't get it. What was special about Fresca?

If nobody's mentioned it already, Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence was published in the '80's and was recently republished. It's pretty easy to find and the stories varied, to say the least.

The book, The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey from Hollywood to Holy Vows (2018) by Mother Dolores Hart O.S.B. and Richard DeNeut is very good and gives you an idea of a lot of the things this thread addresses.

Not really. I had a few as teachers and they are very nasty creatures. Most seem lesbian adjacent.

R44 Fresca was sugar free, and just yucky. I don't think it had even a lemony flavor.

Are there still monasteries filled with hot, young studly monks?

That's where I want to go and devote myself to brotherhood and prayer.

Fresca is supposed to taste like grapefruit.

Fresca may be yucky or taste like grapefruit but that doesn't explain why those nuns were only allowed to drink Fresca.

[quote] She basically just prays and grows food all day.

Growing food sounds like a hard job. Whether a nun is out in the world or cloistered, I think there's a lot of work involved. There's also the same bullshit with the human hierarchies.

This book, "Thank You and OK!" is an easy read, an entertaining look at an American guy's life in a Zen monastery. He was dealing w/the same bitchy interactions that you deal with outside a monastery.

Re: Fresca - maybe they were avoiding caffeine and sugar. I knew a Mormon guy who drank Fresca (no caffeine allowed in Mormonism).

Actor Tom Baker, best known for being the Fourth Doctor on "Doctor Who" had been a Monk as a young man! He joined a monastery right out of high school, and later said that he'd done it just to get away from the home where he'd grown up. However, the experience seemed to have helped him get the role of Rasputin, the "Mad Monk", in the film "Nicholas and Alexandra", which seems to have gotten his career going.

I always wondered what the hell was going on with that guy, gay or just weird?

Most nuns are closeted lesbians, as we all know. Many were violently abusive, in my experience attending Catholic schools. The nuns I knew seemed to despise the boys, whose ears were boxed. Some boys were paddled or slammed against a metal cabinet in a “cloak room” as “discipline.”

Once in sixth grade, our nun teacher even posed the question, “Children, do you know what a homo is?”

Memories of Catholic schools, 1976-1984

I wonder if most nuns are still lezzes, now that there's... less homophobia?

Not every woman in a habit is a Nun. A Nun lives in a cloistered community, praying for us. Women with habits who teach, are nurses and social workers are "Religious Sisters"

The New York Sisters of Mercy founded St. Vincent's Hospital, closing in 2010 after 160 years.

Woman joins Cloistered Community. After 5 years, the Abbess asks how things are going, she replied "Hard bed." After 10 years "Bad food." At 15th year, "Room is Cold." After 20 years, announces that she would like to leave. Abbess responds "A proper decision. All you've done is bitch and moan since you arrived."

[quote] A Nun lives in a cloistered community, praying for us

The word can be used for any woman in a religious community of other women. Not just cloistered.

[quote] Growing food sounds like a hard job.

R52 I don't know, maybe we should ask a farmer.

R53 That actually makes a lot of sense. In those days there probably wasn't a lot of caffeine-free soda. Though I'm not aware of a ban on caffeine for nuns.

[quote]my city which has 15 convents of cloistered nuns

Good lord, that's a lot these days. Do you live in Rome?

In Seville, R62.

^ How fancy, are there a lot of Cadillac dealers nearby?

It's not that Sisters of Mercy New York don't have applicants. It's money, which was never mentioned, Most of the150 sisters are probably old. Many in nursing homes which the congregation pays for. Sisters who have jobs in offices, nursing, social work or teaching may not bring in enough income to sustain the community.

This thread is one of the lisbon's whose living on the DL lately, right?

This is the truth. I knew a fellow in college who was transfixed by nuns. He was slight, very fair, androgynous (but gay and loving it) and wore wire-rim glasses. He also was a fine organist who later got a graduate degree studying in Belgium.

When the mood struck him he'd change into his favorite Catholic sister's habit of his favorite order, pick up a packed black suitcase (tasteful nun extras) and head to the airport. There he'd spend a couple hours acting like a traveling nun, visiting the shops, having a coffee, talking with people who always loved such a young, friendly, holy woman. This was long before 9/11 and people had more run of the concourses and gates.

It was like a tonic to him. He was quite aware of the silliness of his kink.

Jim died of AIDS. in the early 1990s. He's buried next to my uncle's family, and when we visit their graves we stop at Jim's. A priest's grave is across from his in the next row, and I've wondered if he'd like that. I also wish I could remember his nun name.

R46, The Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connnecticut, where Mother Dolores Hart lives, was built in 1947. Founded by the sisters portrayed in "Come to the Stable" by Loretta Young and Celeste Holm.

A priest-friend in a religious order who has a car, piano, and the latest technology, told me "I have everything, I just don't own it"

That’s sad, R66. I hope he got to see Nuns On The Run before he died since he liked silliness.

Patient in Catholic hospital. Woman from Billing arrives. "We see you don't have health insurance. Do you have savings to pay the bill?" "No." .... "Do you have any relatives who could help you out?" "I have a sister who's a spinster, she's a nun."... "Sir, a nun isn't a spinster, she a Bride of Christ. "Well send the bill to my brother-in-law."

R45 One of the nuns in "Breaking Silence" tied one her hands to the bedpost at night, to remind her not to masturbate.

I know 2 ex nuns personally

I keep up with nuns I had in high school and college, and have visited their motherhouse where they're retired many times. Several times I've been the only man other than the priest at Mass, with 50 nuns. I'm not a Catholic any longer but they invite me out of fellowship. Plus some of the nuns aren't especially Catholic any longer, either - they have their own spiritual journeys. Some attend Mass with a woman priest off site from the motherhouse.

From them I learned about all the lesbians, socialists, "mythic Christ" non-historicists, as well as fascist MAGAs among the nuns, most in their 50s to 90s. Some of the sisters were sex addicts, and some were addicts. The nuns don't kick anyone out but work with the sisters having trouble to get treatment and therapy.

One of my favorite nuns in high school marched in Selma with Doctor King. She loved to reminisce . At our graduation commencement, as we lined up to march in to the auditorium, she squeezed my arm, and said, "Now remember, when you go out into the world...Raise Hell!" She smiled enthusiastically as she said it.

I knew a Franciscan nun who worked on an Indian reservation. No habit, she had long blonde hair, wore earrings and carried a purse. I kidded her that she looked like Suzanne Sommers, She supervised older nuns who deeply resented her. Nuns were living in their own apartments and working in department stores, rather than teaching or nursing. She said the priest scandal shied even Catholic grade schools from having nuns teach, they preferred lay people. This 20 years ago and she was in her midb40's then. I suspect she gave up the habit, she was aggravated by incoming Pope Ratzenberger, who was threatening to put nuns back in the habit.

I'm wondering where all of you are that there are still nuns around. I live in Chicago and most of the convents were closed years ago. I will say that a church near me does have some nuns wearing habits in what I call "Virgin Mary" blue (which I had never seen before). I thought most of the nuns these days come from Africa or Latin America.

And years ago there was a lot of news about how most of the nuns were aging out and there was no retirement in place for them unless priests.

My friend went to Catholic school. He knew beforehand when it was best to stay home from school. The Nuns all cycled together.

[quote]The Nuns all cycled together.

There I was, wondering what nuns on bikes has to do with staying home from school, LOL.

"And years ago there was a lot of news about how most of the nuns were aging out and there was no retirement in place for them unless priests."

I thought the nuns at contemplative or rural orders just stayed there until they died, cared for by younger nuns. But yes, what becomes of nuns who teach or nurse? No retirement for them?

As for aging nuns, it makes sense that numbers dropped big-time during the 20th century, when options for unmarried women got so much more interesting. Now I've heard that some of the dropoff was made up for with older people becoming postulants, people who'd raised children and lived in the world decided to chuck it all, and live a life of contemplation or service. And the older I get, the more I understand that impulse...

Nuns from a particular Order, be it Sisters of Mercy, Dominican, Franciscan, etc. retire to the Mother House, where yes, the other sisters look after them. A lot of them- not kidding - become addicted to the internet and talk shows (like Jerry Springer, not Fulton Sheen). It's preferred they not retire to live with their blood relations, but with their 'community' as they call it.

[quote]Woman joins Cloistered Community. After 5 years, the Abbess asks how things are going, she replied "Hard bed." After 10 years "Bad food." At 15th year, "Room is Cold." After 20 years, announces that she would like to leave. Abbess responds "A proper decision. All you've done is bitch and moan since you arrived."

That's a funny joke, r59, but you left out a very important detail: the new nun has taken a vow of silence and can only speak 2 words every 5 years, and only in response to the Abbess' question. Here's the joke:

A woman joins Cloistered Community and takes on a vow of silence, allowed to speak only 2 words to the Abbess at 5-year intervals.

After 5 years, the Abbess asks how things are going, the nun replied, "Hard bed."

After 10 years "Bad food."

At the15th year, "Room cold."

After 20 years, "I'm leaving."

Abbess responds "A proper decision. All you've done is bitch and moan since you arrived."

After 8 years of elementary school, I have very mixed feelings about nuns. Most were kind and good teachers, but there was one in my school that was a notorious sadist. She'd have girls in tears, trembling, completely petrified. She thought nothing of throwing boys around. There was constant screaming and humiliation. Everyone knew this was going on, including the other nuns, no one stopped it. Many in the church knew about the violence and sexual abuse, no one even tried to stop it. So, fuck them and fuck all the clergy.

The world has changed so much, for the better I think, that it is almost inconceivable that all this went on for decades and decades. I wish I had gone to the public school, it was one of the best in the city.

I know a few nuns. Have visted them at the convent for dinners a few times. The convent is located in a lovely cul-de-sac sac, nice grand gardens and lots of rolling hills. I want to move there

Back in the olden days of Henry the 8th, Nuns were lewd.

The Killing of Sister George should be a DL staple.

It should, R85.

'Well, hello, girls!'

What R4 said.

Datalounge is so fucking weird now.

[quote] Pope Ratzenberger

Oh, dear.

Even Maria got in trouble for singing in the Abbey. She had to go to the hills to be alive!

I have always been interested in the Carthusians. There are both male and female monasteries in the world to this day that have had the same routine for 1000 years.

----------------

THE DAILY LIFE OF A CARTHUSIAN

The life of a medieval Carthusian was very different from that of other monks. In a Carthusian priory, each monk lived alone in a substantial house, called a cell. Each cell was in effect a private monastery, with its own cloister for meditation and a walled garden. At Mount Grace Priory in North Yorkshire – the best-preserved Carthusian monastery in England – there were 25 of these cells.

The Carthusian way of life was strict, but the monks enjoyed a good standard of living. This allowed them to concentrate on their religious life, without worldly cares.

A SOLITARY LIFE

The purpose of Carthusian life was total withdrawal from the world to serve God by personal devotion and privation. While other monks lived communally, Carthusians rarely met one another, passing the long day in the isolation of their cells and surfacing only occasionally.

The monks’ lives were ordered by a strict timetable. They followed the same daily round of eight offices (or prayers) as monks of other religious orders. But uniquely, they only celebrated the night offices and the afternoon office of Vespers together regularly in the church, and Mass less frequently. Otherwise they said their offices and celebrated Mass alone in their cells.

Only on Sundays and feast days was the monastic day different. On these days, the monks dined together, met to discuss business and discipline, and celebrated all offices in the church.

The monks’ hermitic lives account for the unique planning of Carthusian monasteries, or charterhouses. The layout of cells around a great cloister is recorded at the first charterhouse, the Grande Chartreuse in France, and remains unchanged today.

The cells were essentially private monasteries, and they, rather than the church, were the centre of religious life, where the monks spent most of their time, praying, meditating and working.

Documents and the evidence of excavation at Mount Grace Priory show what ‘trades’ the monks followed. One, Sir Thomas Goldwynne, was a weaver, and came from London with his loom and household goods in 1519. Other monks, from the evidence of pens and oyster shells full of coloured pigments, copied and illuminated manuscripts. One was a bookbinder, with tools and book fittings.

Carthusian monks ate together in their refectory (dining room) only on Sundays, feast days and days when monks were buried. They ate their main meal mid-morning, with a second light meal after Vespers. Normally, the lay brothers (domestic servants to the monks) brought food and drink to the monks’ cells, passing them through the hatch beside the door.

The monks fasted regularly and often drank water, which was supplied to each cell by a tap. Good drains and clean drinking water were central to the lives of Carthusians, who, unlike monks of other orders, drank water as well as beer.

In their cells, the monks had all they needed for eating and drinking, including two spoons, two pots, a jug, a bread knife and a salt cellar.

The Carthusians never ate meat. Excavation of the monastic kitchen at Mount Grace has shown that monks ate mostly fish, pulses and eggs, although they could grow vegetables in their gardens.

The monks’ guests were served meat, which was cooked in a separate kitchen, beside the guest house.

INSIDE A MONK’S CELL

Although there were some variations, most of the 25 cells at Mount Grace follow a common pattern, as shown in this reconstruction drawing.

There were three rooms on the ground floor – a living room, a study, and a bedroom combined with an oratory (a private chapel). Upstairs, there was a work room. Meals were passed to the monk through a hatch beside the entrance door from the cloister.

Between the cell and the garden was a short corridor that served as a private cloister where the monk could read and meditate. A second corridor led to the latrine, which was set in the garden wall away from the cell. In one of the corridors was a tap for drinking water.

High walls enclosed a private garden where the monk could perform manual labour and grow food. The garden also provided a spiritual metaphor for Paradise. Several of the gardens at Mount Grace have been excavated and details of their planting recovered.

The lay brothers in a charterhouse were essentially servants subject to monastic discipline. They did the manual work of the monastery, leaving the choir monks free to pray, meditate and study.

At Mount Grace the lay brothers were originally housed in a separate but adjacent monastery. By the late 15th century, however, they lived in the same complex as the monks and obeyed the same rules. They were the cooks, bakers, brewers, gatekeepers and cleaners of the monastery, and its contact with the outside world and the estate. They were the responsibility of the most senior monk after the prior, the procurator, who also managed the priory’s estates and guests.

Some of the lay brothers may have come from gentry families. In the 12th century some bishops retired to become Carthusian lay brothers, showing that it was an honourable calling. Supporting the choir monks was itself a way of serving God.

I hate them with the fire of a thousand suns.

In addition to the usual horrible behavior of many of them during the Mad Men era, I had extra vitriol unleashed on me because my mother was divorced. No one else in the school came from a divorced family except me and those evil witches never let me forget it for a minute. One in particular hated me and would do nasty things like snatch a birthday party invitation out of my hand and hand it back to the mother of the classmate and tell the mother that I came from a "bad family" and she wouldn't want me in her house. I could go on for paragraphs about how she went out of her way to humiliate me. I unintentionally got some revenge on this particular evil witch one morning during Mass. She slapped me and I in turn projectile vomited Lucky Charms all over her.

As a child, the only nuns I knew of were from that early Sally Fields Programe and when my grandmother let me, at 3 1/2, have the St. Joseph’s Baby Aspirin bottle as a rattle and I ate all those wonderful orange flavored candies (before child safe caps obs.) I was rushed to the Catholic hospital to have my stomach pumped. Seeing the nun/nurses I assumed they were angels and my mother thought I was having visitations from beyond because I was dying going on and on about all the angels being around me.

They kind of freak me out and fascinate me, and Agnes of God made it even more so.

I had a mixed bag of nuns. Most were sweet, a few were leftovers from The Inquisition. Sister John Vianney hated 12 year old boys with a passion. She thought we were all lazy, smart alecks and she liked to take you head first and place you out in the hallway against the wall, making sure to BANG your head as hard as she could against the wall. A girl classmate told SJV that her sister was getting married, not in the church, but at her parents home, and she told the whole class her sister must be ashamed to face God for her nuptials and that she must HAVE to get married, then asked for prayers for her sister's unborn baby. The girl said her sister wasn't having a baby, but SJV insisted no young lady would be refused to marry at the main church altar unless she was having a baby before marriage, or marrying outside the faith. She was a nutjob.

Endangered species

I think we don't see them as much because they don't wear their nun outfits in public anymore.

R54, Tom Baker cruised my (male) partner many years ago at a film screening so I am assuming Baker is at least bi.

Nuns, no, not particularly.

Monks/ monastics/ friars, well I got a story. Years ago me and a mate drove down to a local monastery for the day I thought we was going on some kind of retreat, well we ended up fucking a couple of the monks in a field behind the monastery, that was a fun day out!. The one I had was hot too, never got to go back unfortunately

How did happen, r98? Was there some type of conversation like "want to go have sex in a field" or did you just go to the field and it happened naturally? We need details.

Well we were in a room with them, and they suggested a walk and first my mate started to strip off in the field (its was a field of high corn or something like that) and the monks followed and so did I and it all happened naturally from there. My mate knew what was going to go down I reckon

This was a long time ago, like the late 90's somy memory of it all aint too good

My mother and father both had sisters in the convent (“sisters who were sisters”, so to speak.

ASa child I just assumed that everybody had an auntie in the convent, like me.

I spent a lot of time with nuns. They were mostly pretty good fun, although my dad would complain that they’d serve him warm beer with ice in it on visiting days. They were in different orders but both had fabulous pre Vatican sixty whatever habits.

I was educated by the Christian Brothers who were definitely not pretty good fun - bunch of repressed, violent pedos.

This article says it all for me.

[quote]I'm wondering where all of you are that there are still nuns around.

There are lots of religious sisters in L.A., often where there are large Filipino populations. My ex roommate in Valley Village was a former postulate nun from Manila who spent a lot of her free time at the local church, where a group of religious sisters lived.

There is a retreat center in Encino a mile from the agency I work for, with Sisters of Social Service living on site. They have glass walls along the hallway so that everyone can see into their rooms, but I think there are curtains that can be pulled across. There's also a motherhouse for the older sisters, maintained by donations and incomes from younger sisters and relatives.

I've also seen Latina sisters in full old timey attire (usually brown robes) taking classes at CSUN. There's always a few of them each semester.

People — particularly the Irish — don’t have masses of children anymore. My mother was from a family of 9 children, her sister had 8 kids. An old friend of mine was from a family of 14 kids (one died in childbirth, so 13 survived) and her sister married a man from a family of 10 children in Ireland.

There were lots of extra kids in those families. You “gave one to the church.” The biggest dream was to have a son who became a priest. That was the equivalent of a son from a Jewish family becoming a doctor. Having a daughter who became a nun was second best. Back in the old days in Ireland a woman who wanted to learn to read had to become a nun because there was no such thing as sending a girl to school. My grandmother was illiterate. But one of her brothers was a priest who spoke, among other languages, fluent Swahili.

People don’t have extra children nowadays, so they can’t simply dispose of the unattractive or weirdly smart daughter by dropping her off at a convent. (“Weirdly smart” because females were not supposed to be smart. A girl who wanted to read and write was seen as kind of a failure, and might have been extremely suspect in some families…includng mine).

I remember my mother telling me how one of my grandmother’s brothers was sent to NY to emigrate and get a job. He landed in August during a heat waste and said, “Fuck no. This ain’t for me.” So he got right back on the ship and worked for free passage down the coast of the US, central and South America, across to Africa and back up to Europe. He said in all his ports of call - even to equatorial regions - nowhere was as miserably hot and humid as NYC.

So he went back home and his mother - a widow - was glad to see him. He got a job on a farm outside the city, so she let him stay, When it was time for my grandmother to emigrate she begged to stay home with her mother. “No dear, there are no jobs for you here. You need to go to American and find a man with a job. I cannot support you and have other children to bring up alone since your father died.”

It broke my grandmother’s heart to leave. She was 16. But she couldn’t stay because she couldn’t read or write, so no chance she could even become a nun. She was pretty much worthless to her family.

These were not sentimental people. A girl needed to be married off ASAP if she couldn’t be packed off to a convent.

Soooo… smaller families = fewer nuns.

Smaller families = less poverty, so a female might actually have a chance to get an education outside of convent walls.

More choices = fuck off, mother superior .

And nowadays you don’t even need a man to procreate - just a test tube, an agar plate and a scope.

A lot of nuns blend in more now. Many don't wear habits anymore. I was in an airport once and I struck up a casual conversation with a lady who had on a very conservative dark blouse and skirt with sensible shoes. She was a nun but unless she said something I would have thought she was just a frumpy dresser. She did wear a cross necklace.

At Catholic High School graduation, the Sister Principal, asked each girl their plans. One said "I'm going to be a prostitute." ... "A what? ..."A prostitute." ... "Thank God, I thought you said "a Protestant"

Fans of abusive Irish nuns will love Peter Mullen's 'The Magdalene Sisters' (2002), which should be a much better known film than it is. It's set in Ireland's infamous Magdalene laundries but was released 10 years before the scandal really broke. Geraldine Somerville is remarkably sinister as Sr. Bridget, who runs a massive slave labour camp while preaching redemption to its inmates. There's also scenes of violence and sometimes sexualised abuse towards the women inmates. A lot of farmers' second daughters went into the convent without a great deal of education because there weren't many other possibilities, and how they took their bitterness out on the women and children they had power over.

My grandfather’s sister had Spanish flu. I was told it gave her encephalitis. It’s kind of murky because encephalitis and Spanish flu were around in that period1919-1929. I’m not sure if she had both or just one.

She had been a normal 11 year old. She survived but my mother said, “She never grew up” which in those days meant brain damage. As she grew older she became bigger, more difficult to control. She became violent, getting into fights with family and friends. She ran away.

At age 14 she was “sent to live with the nuns.” I thought it was some kind of nice group home or infirmary for women and girls. She was still there in the 1970s…maybe even later. I remember my mother sent her Christmas gifts after my grandfather died.

One year she sent her a pocketbook with cash in it. The following year the nuns wrote to her and told her that her aunt had hit other patients with the pocketbook. Please don’t send her anything she could use as a weapon or throw, the nuns asked. Money would be fine, she could buy sweets.

Looking back on it I realize she was in one of those horrible places. The nuns ran the laundries and orphanages.

The orphanages were terrible. All of Ireland was deprived, so orphanages were utterly desperate.

A woman wrote a story of how a prank she played on an orphan as a young kid made her feel guilty about it over the years. The woman said her mother never talked about her family. One day the woman realized her mother had grown up in an orphanage. Mother never talked about it because it was something be ashamed of back then. To be an orphan meant you were born in sin.

So the woman looked into the history of orphanages and found an orphanage which had an area full of bones. It turned out to be a drainage sump or sewer the nuns had used to bury bodies of children who died in the orphanage. Now, some people think the nuns murdered the children, but I don’t. There was virtually no medical care in Ireland those days and many childhood diseases were fatal -- diphtheria, encephalitis, diarrhea, measles, mumps…not to mention metabolic and autoimmune diseases that were unknown in those days. Some of the children died of malnutrition but diarrhea and vomiting could lead to malnutrition, as could chronic metabolic illnesses and cancer.

So I don’t think nuns killed the kids but I’m sure there was very little they had to treat children. When I was a kid I remember my mother giving us a mayo jar full of hot water to press on our faces when we had a toothache. She also put a wet towel on our backs for pain when we had bad sunburn, and a wet cloth for a headache. Years later I asked her, “Why didn’t you give us baby aspirin when we were in pain?” and she said, “I thought aspirin was just for fever. Besides, your father would get mad if I used all the aspirin and had to buy more.”

Like I said before, we’re talking about unsentimental people who accepted suffering as normal and who accepted helplessness as a fact of life. The direness of Ireland’s poverty is incomprehensible to us nowadays. They had nothing except that fucking church. No food, no education, no hope. Off you went to the orphanage, or to the laundry, or onto a boat that would take you to another continent.

Whenever I hear about Rosemary Kennedy I think about my grandfather's sister. Rosemary had what was called epilepsy in those days (which was hidden). Her behavior deteriorated as she got older and had more seizures. Seizures cause brain damage. It makes sense that her behavior and ability to learn was affected. But they didn’t know anything about that in those days. They thought it was a behavioral disorder.

At least the Windsor boy, Prince John, was kept in a comfortable place while he deteriorated from severe seizure disorder. I wonder if his disease and the disease of Rosemary Kennedy might have been cause by infection, like my great-aunt’s.

Jesus -

1947 John Pascal Rodgers was born to Bridie Rodgers. She was an abandoned toddler who was picked up off the street at two and half years of age and charged with begging. She was found guilty and was sent to an Industrial school in Clifden, Co Galway, and ordered to be detained there until her sixteenth birthday. She was then sent to work in a big house where she was assaulted and fell pregnant.

She was sent to a mother and baby Home in Tuam, from where she was forcibly separated from her then one-year-old son John Paschal and Bridie was forcibly put into the Magdalene Laundry in Galway City as punishment for her sins. She remained incarcerated till she escaped 15 years later along with two other inmates, who fled to England

Sorry, just noticed I messed up the link to the trailer of The Magdalene Sisters, see below.

While I'm here I'll also mention 'Philomena' the book and film on the true story of an Irish woman's search for her son who had been taken from her and adopted by a US family. He goes on to have a *very* interesting life.