From the category archives:

news on the nunfront

From Hollywood Actress to Benedictine Nun

by Sister Julie on August 2, 2008

Dolores Hart, OSBDid you ever hear about the Hollywood actress Dolores Hart, a movie star of the 1950s and 60s. She is purported to have given Elvis Presley his first movie kiss during the movie King Creole in 1958. Shortly after playing Saint Clare of Assisi in the movie Francis of Assisi, Hart entered a  Benedictine community of cloistered Catholic nuns at the Monastery of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. In 2001 she was elected Prioress (assists the Abbess of the community) of the community. She is the only nun to be a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (givers of the Oscars).

A few interesting interviews with Mother Dolores Hart, OSB.

Dolores Hart: How a movie actress left Hollywood for a contract with God by Barbara Cloud, for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (April 08, 1998)

Excerpt:

… she never saw herself as a nun.

“It was not a lifelong dream,” she said. “I did not grow up wanting to be a nun. I wanted to be an actress. If it had ever been suggested I would one day be a nun, it would have been the last thing on my mind. It was a million to one shot I would ever be a nun.”

… Mother Dolores calls her life as a Benedictine nun “an island of enclosure.” It is a monastic life that includes prayers at several hours of the day, including 2 a.m. It is a structured life with little time for much else than handling chores on the farm and woodlands involving 359 acres. The land maintains the community, the group of 40 women of various professional backgrounds.

From the Glitter of Hollywood to the Quiet of a Convent by Barbara Middleton for National Catholic Register (July 10-16, 2005)

Excerpt:

… [After starring in the movie Francis of Assisi], I met Pope John XXIII, and he was very instrumental in helping me form my ideas about a vocation.

When I was introduced to the Pope, I said, “I am Dolores Hart, the actress playing Clara.” He said, “No, you are Clara!” Thinking he had misunderstood me, I said, “No, I am Dolores Hart, an actress portraying Clara.” Pope John XXIII looked me squarely in the eye and stated, “No. You are Clara!” His statement stayed with me and rang in my ears many times.

Hollywood star turned nun helps Waterbury group by Tracy Simmons for the Republican-American (May 31, 2008)

Excerpt:

… She found herself asking what life is about. Hollywood gave her everything she wanted, she said, she was even engaged to Los Angeles businessman Don Robinson. She told him, however, that she wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do and called the wedding off six months after the engagement. “It would make a heck of a good movie wouldn’t it?,” she joked.

She told him she had to go to Bethlehem to visit the convent again. “I walked up to the hill (on the 400-acre property) and I thought to myself this is it. I’ve got to do this,” Hart said. Six months later she announced that she “had an affair to take care of.” “They thought it was a guy,” she laughed.

She arrived at the convent in a limousine. “I arrived at Regina Laudis in style.” But she said the transition wasn’t easy.

“It was the hardest thing possible. The first seven years I wanted to quit, to turn around,” she said. “But when the seed finally sprouted and I knew God was there and it was the right thing to do, I don’t think there was anything in my life that made me happier and I would never, ever change my mind.”

{ 2 comments }

Sister Nancy Pelosi?

by Sister Julie on July 29, 2008

Nancy PelosiThe Washington Post published an interview today with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi whose book Know Your Power just came out. The interview, “Nancy Pelosi Airs Some Clean Laundry in ‘Power’” by Libby Copeland (July 29, 2008; Page C01) mentions that Pelosi’s mom always wanted her to be a nun …

Your mom wanted you to become a nun.

Oh, definitely.

When did she stop pressing that?

She always pressed that. From being a little girl, she would always be talking about how she wanted me to be a nun. . . . It was always something that she thought would be a beautiful life, free from the hardships of life — and prayerful and making a contribution to society.

My mother was a very devout Catholic. One of my brothers went into the seminary, and oh my, she was as happy as she could be. He didn’t stay.

I do like the line about being a nun means being “prayerful and making a contribution to society” although this is something that all people are called to do and I trust that Pelosi is doing this in her life and ministry right now as Speaker of the House. What is not so accurate is that being a nun does not mean that we can ever “be free from the hardships of life.” Nuns — contemplative ones or cloistered ones, or ones in the world, apostolic ones — are never separate from the world and its hardships. We experience them just as much as others and in fact we have to be in tuned with them so as to be able to truly meet people where they are.

I’d love to hear from Pelosi about how she lives a “beautiful life” that is “prayerful” and allows her to make a contribution to society. What she is doing, as are all our public servants (underscore servants) is a real ministry, or at least is supposed to be because they are serving people and hold the common good as an important value.

{ 6 comments }

Sister Dorothy Stang, SNDdeN

by Sister Julie on July 20, 2008

Sister Dorothy Stang, SNDdeN, was a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur who was killed in February 2005 because of her work with and on behalf of the people of Brazil. She had lived in Brazil for over 40 years ago and worked with the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization of the Catholic Church that fights for the rights of rural workers and peasants, and defends land reforms in Brazil. The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur have a web page dedicated to Sister Dorothy Stang.

There was a lot of news coverage recently because one of the persons responsible for her murder was acquitted. Then this article came out about Sister Dorothy’s brother, David Stang — “Nun’s Dream Lives On” by Colleen O’Connor of the Denver Post. Though the story emerges from the terrible tragedy of Sister Dorothy’s death and the ongoing oppression of the poor in Brazil, it is filled with hope and with light.

Dorothy’s murder had a profound affect on her brother David. According to this article, the murder “thrust David — blissfully retired and tending his coin and stamp collections — smack in the middle of an international drama of land wars and death lists.”

[David] Stang, who is studying Portuguese, has traveled to Brazil nine times, attending all the trials. He has trekked deep into the rainforest to visit Dorothy’s grave and to sleep in the bed where she spent her last night….

Over the past three years, he has met with Brazilian politicians and embraced countless farmers who grieve the loss of Dorothy.

And he has worked with journalists from CNN and international newspapers to keep her story alive. A week after the murder, he traveled to Brazil with Denver independent filmmaker Daniel Junge to be part of his documentary “They Killed Sister Dorothy,” which won first prize at the South by Southwest Film Festival and will be featured this fall at the Denver Film Festival.

“I think it’s incredibly brave for someone in his stage of life to really put himself out there in the way he has,” Junge said. “I don’t think he planned to spend his retirement this way.”

The investment of time, however, helped the prosecution, said Brent Rushforth, the Washington, D.C., lawyer who represented the Stang family at the trials.”His presence as a representative of the family, and keeping the spotlight on the story, is one reason why the Brazilian guys have done their job,” he said….

Stang, who calls himself “the living spokesperson for Dorothy,” … vows to keep her legacy alive, even if it means spending time with people such as Henri des Roziers, a French priest in Brazil who, according to local journalists, has a price on his head of 100,000 Brazilian reais — about $38,000, or twice the amount allegedly paid for Dorothy’s murder.

When des Roziers invited Stang to attend the opening of a new school named for Dorothy in Xinguara, at the heart of the violent conflict, he didn’t hesitate. The trek included two airplane flights and a four-hour drive in a pickup truck on rutted jungle roads deep into the frontier, where he was greeted by hundreds.

“The workers wore hard hats and were standing at attention. The kids came out in their uniforms. Everyone sang songs. There were hugs and tears. If I’m a symbol of pride to them, then, yes, I’ll be there.”

Do read the full article in the Denver Post and check out the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur’s web page dedicated to Sister Dorothy Stang.

{ 3 comments }