The Silence We Keep: A Nun's View of the Catholic Priest Scandal (17 page)

From the mid-nineteenth century when American sisterhood was born, until the mid-1960s when the whole world changed (in and out of the convent), the daily life of nuns pretty much remained the same. By papal decree all religious sisters were required to live in common; wear a habit; and profess vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Some cloistered, contemplative nuns also vowed stability, vowed to remain in the convent house they entered, until death or departure. While some questionable religious practices were modified with time, common sense, and
health codes (like kissing the floor, wearing wedding gowns for final profession, shaving heads), the sisterhood I entered in 1964 was not much different from the sisterhood of those women who entered fifty years before me. The biggest difference between the young and senior sisters lies in the fact that by 1964, much of what we were told to do made no sense. There were rules (like no talking) that we didn’t take seriously or obey, nor were the consequences for breaking daytime silence serious. What may have worked in the sisterhood for a hundred years outlived its purpose. A big part of that was eighteen-year-old ignorance, and a big part of that was true.

Up until the Vatican Council II opened in 1963 (Pope John XXIII’s divine mandate to change), convent life everywhere was uniformly and rigidly structured, censored, and supervised. All girls became initiated into sisterhood through a formation process that usually took seven years, seven being the number symbolizing completeness, fulfillment, and virginity, and in the Goddess religion the number seven represents the Great Mother. In a way, “sister formation” was a process of initiation into Great Motherhood, Great Sisterhood. For us, the seven years included nine long months as a postulant, two cloistered years in the novitiate, and two years of further study called the scholasticate, in which we completed our college education. Following graduation, we were sent out on “mission” the next day, giving us at least two years of living and working as real sisters before deciding to profess final vows.

At each stage of initiation, we looked more like real nuns. For nine months we were dressed as a postulant, which looked like a pilgrim. As postulants we wore floor-length black dresses and capes with white collars and, whenever we were in the chapel or left the building, black veils with narrow white headbands. Upon
entering the novitiate we received the holy habit and for the first time looked like a “real nun.” As a Sister of the Holy Cross, we sewed by hand our own habits according to
Constitutions of the Congregation:

The religious habit of black material is made as directed. It consists of a fitted waist and a gathered skirt which falls to a length of two inches from the ground; sleeves twelve inches wide extending to the finger tips; a circular cape reaching two inches below the waist and made of the same material as the habit skirt; small close fitting sleeves; a white collar. The headdress of white material consists of a small inner cap, a band to cover the forehead, and a circular border. A semi-circular black veil completes the headdress.

The professed sister also wears a blue cincture, and a silver heart-shaped medallion surmounted by a cross. The medallion bears on its obverse image the image of the Mother of Sorrows and the words,
Congregatio Sancte Crucis
and on its reverse the words
Mater Dolorosissima, ora pro nobis.
³
It is worn suspended on a black cord. The chaplet of seven dolors is worn at the right side. The chaplet is strung on a brass chain and has a cross of wood edged with brass bearing the corpus of Christ in the same metal.

The novice wears a white veil…and receives the cincture and the silver heart at her first profession.
⁴

For hundreds of years, girls were initiated into every Catholic sisterhood in nearly the same way. And though sister formation was modified in my day to ensure that we were qualified at the
start to teach or nurse (it took some sisters more than ten years to finish college), the life we lived as nuns in training was as old as the community itself.

The order of the day for sisters remained the same for ages and remained relatively uniform throughout the Catholic sisterhood. Probably every nun in the world was wakened at 5:00
A.M.
by the morning bell and followed the same schedule of events. Every sister I meet lived the same religious life I did. The order of our day was filled with spiritual exercises. Morning prayer and meditation were followed by mass and praying the Divine Office (psalms the whole church prays at certain times of the day). Then there was an examination of our consciences at noon
(particular examen)
, praying the rosary, visiting the Blessed Sacrament (chapel visits), spiritual reading (
lectio divina)
, and night prayer. Until the 1960s, that’s what a day in the life of a nun looked like, with housework and ministry added.

When the fifty of us postulants weren’t in the chapel doing spiritual exercises, we were given assigned housework, cleaning jobs called “obediences” because you had to do them whether you liked it or not. Everything we were asked to do was to be heard as a call from God, an obedience. For example, I spent one very hot Indiana summer working alone outside pulling weeds out of the cracks in the sidewalk and scrubbing bird droppings off picnic tables (an example of what happened to sisters who couldn’t keep the silence). Every day (except Sunday) included at least an hour or two of manual labor. That’s why convents always looked sparkling clean. Floors were waxed monthly on hands and knees, and buffed to shine every day. Each summer endless flights of ten-foot-wide staircases were sanded and varnished by hand. Manual labor was seen as no less holy a work than anything else we did. Even so, my not-so-holy sentiments while sweating on the hot sidewalk were similar to those of
Teresa of Avila when she got thrown from her horse into a big puddle of mud. To God she says: “If this is how you treat your friends, it’s no wonder you have so few.”
⁵

The time that was left after spiritual exercises and housework was given to private prayer, study, creative work (music, art, writing, etc.), and recreation. Putting it all together, a day in the life of a sister looked like this:

5:00
A.M.
Rising Bell

5:30
A.M.
Morning Meditation

6:00
A.M.
Mass and Morning Prayer (Lauds)

7:00
A.M.
Breakfast (in silence)

8:00
A.M.
Housework

9:00
A.M.
Class/Study

11:45
A.M.
Examination of Conscience

12:00
P.M.
Lunch (in silence)

12:45
P.M.
Recreation

1:30
P.M.
Class/Study/Private Prayer

5:30
P.M.
Evening Prayer (Vespers)

6:00
P.M.
Dinner (usually in silence)

6:45
P.M.
Recreation

7:30
P.M.
Night Prayer (Compline)/Grand Silence

9:00
P.M.
Lights Out

Throughout that day, sisters’ lives were wrapped completely in silence, enclosure, and censorship. We could not have been more separated from the rest of the world, nor could we have been more silent. With the exception of times appointed for “legitimate recreation,” we were expected to keep quiet. As the rule book wisely noted, “Conversational powers are no common gift, especially among women meeting daily in the same circle.” I suppose the founding sisters thought that since we did everything
together, day after day, what was there to say? Not to mention the practical fact of how noisy the convent would be if fifty college-age women talked all the time, or laughed out loud as much as we did internally.

Silence was both a divine right and a divine rule in every sisterhood I know. We ate our meals in silence (except for special occasions) and worked in silence. And unless absolutely necessary, breaking silence was equivalent to a sisterly sin, something to be confessed at the monthly Chapter of Faults—a community exercise in sisterly humility. Of utmost importance was the silence to be kept at night, fittingly called the Great Silence, or Grand Silence. Beginning with the close of evening recreation and lasting until after mass the following morning, Great Silence was to be especially observed, so much so that breaking it was grounds for immediate dismissal. Even eye contact and sign language counted as a violation of Grand Silence. The belief was that sisters living in the presence of God would never disturb one another unnecessarily, especially at night, when Gods tend to speak more clearly. I still find myself keeping Grand Silence at night, though mine begins much later now, as does my rising.

Not only were our religious lives lived in silence, but they were also enclosed and isolated from outside influences, including family, friends, and all forms of media. Newspapers and magazines were banned, as was television and radio. While there was a large TV set in the community room (living room), the knobs were removed lest we be tempted to sneak a peek. I would have. Seeing any television program was a rare treat, and for the Sisters of the Holy Cross, Notre Dame football games were defined as one of them. One superior “Superior,” Holy Cross Sister Gertrude Sullivan, allowed us to watch
Mission Impossible
and the Academy Awards the year Barbra Streisand won the Oscar for
Funny Girl.
Other than that, our lives as sisters-in-formation
were cut off completely from the outside world—so much so that in 1967, we were informed about the Vietnam War one morning after breakfast, along with the other announcements for the day.

All the news we received as sisters-in-formation was censored by the superior, including incoming and outgoing mail. Two letters, one of which must be sent to family, could be written per month on a single sheet of paper. All mail was sent unsealed through the superior. Oftentimes our outgoing letters were returned in order to be rewritten to reflect more clearly how happy we were. No complaining about the rules, the food, or sisters we didn’t like. Incoming mail was censored as well, and some letters, especially from former boyfriends, were never received. No love letters allowed. Long letters from best friends and family were equally troublesome. Most often, we’d receive only the first and last pages, the rationale being that anything really important would be said in those two parts. The truth of the matter was that the superior didn’t have time to read it all, so we just got the first and last pages. That’s how seriously censored contact was with the outside world. All correspondence was supervised and any attempt at “clandestine activity” (sneaking letters in and out) was grounds for immediate dismissal.

Until one was finally professed, immediate dismissal was always a daily threat, and any hint of scandal, especially anything sexual, provided clear and sufficient reason. Zero tolerance for sexual relationships in the sisterhood was a foregone conclusion long before I arrived on the scene, and every sister I talk to says the same. Even though incidents of sexual activity may occur, the minute it becomes public knowledge in the community, the sisters are gone. Because of the silence some nuns keep, stories can always be heard of sexual activity that goes on undetected and generally unknown, or known by a highly secretive few and generally ignored by the rest.

In asking sisters and former sisters if they were aware of sexual relationships in the sisterhood, I received two responses: yes and no. Some ex-nuns told stories about their sexual relationships of which no one was aware, including me. One sister spoke of being shocked and horrified by the seductive moves of her piano teacher (still a nun), and nearly all described the incidents as being so discreet and wrapped in silence that no one knew but the sisters involved. Most reported that they knew of no incidents of sexual activity, other than that of sisters who got sent home. All emphasized the zero-tolerance policy for sexual relationships in the sisterhood. Unacceptable.

Even with the universal zero-tolerance policy for sexual relationships in the Catholic sisterhood, the stories told in the 1985 revolutionary (at the time) book
Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence
, appear to be typical of the kind of sexual activity that occurred.
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Fifty-two true stories are told of ex-nuns my age and their sexual escapades in the convent, some of which involved superiors and novice mistresses who remained community leaders. One former sister tells the story of being seduced by a “dear friend” of Mother Superior who dropped by her room one evening. “Finding Mother Superior out, she stayed to talk to me. In the wee hours of the morning, I realized that a woman was FLIRTING with me.”
⁷
Having been invited to spend the night at “her place,” and two whiskey sours later, she had her first sexual experience. Both women left the community shortly after, as did the Mother Superior and several other nuns in that convent who carried on sexual liaisons, one with a Franciscan monk.