It’s like something out of a comic book — Nuns spy evil-wrongdoing in a quiet village and mobilize forces (”Wonder Twin powers ACTIVATE! Form of a holy vigilant!”) to swoop down from the heavens and accost said perpetrator to restore peace and tranquility to the land. “Hail, Sister Mary!!” shout the peasant people as the nuns drop the befuddled criminal at the doorstep of the jail.

I’m referring to the recent “quality” news reporting about two Catholic sisters who helped police catch a crook. Let me first say that I applaud and admire Sister Catarina da Silva, OSF, and Sister Connie Boulch, OSF, both Sisters of Saint Francis of the Holy Eucharist in Independence, Missouri. And yes, Mr. and Ms. Media Person, they have names. But don’t let a person’s name get in the way of reporting the facts of a nun running down a gun-toting madman.

Where was I? Oh yes, Sisters Catarina and Connie are awesome. They saw trouble and responded. My beef is not with them. Not at all. My beef is with those members of the media (not all!) who feel compelled to trivialize and belittle the lives of my Sisters so that they can link together as many ridiculous nun clichés as possible.

“Thou shalt not steal — especially within sight of a convent.” [Ironically the very next commandment is "Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor."]

“You can call it an act of God, or divine intervention. But, whatever you call it, one thing is clear: you don’t mess with nuns from the Sisters of Saint Francis.” [You can add to your list a blogging nun who finds this kind of reporting ridiculous and offensive.]

Sister Connie soon realized the man was not on a mission from God…. Not a man of the cloth, but a gun toting, tool wielding suspect who police think is responsible for two other burglaries in the area.” [It's just wrong, so wrong.]

And it doesn’t stop there. Bloggers and other social media folks have picked up on the story and had their fun. One blogger commented on the story next to which he posted a photo of a woman in sexy nun attire. Degrading on so many levels.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not adverse to a little good-natured fun with nuns. But much of this kind of reporting/writing dehumanizes the women who are nuns … reduces them to a laughable caricature, an object with no name, no dignity, no human agency. It makes me very sad to see people treated that way.

Enough of that. Let me tell you the real story — which some reporters did well at communicating, though others had it so buried in clichés that it was difficult to take seriously.

“He could have harmed us and he didn’t. Instead he chose to run, that tells me something about this young man,” said Sister Connie. (Fox News)

We’re in the business of saving souls,” said Sister Connie of the Sisters of St. Francis. “We’re not in the business of stopping crime.” … Sister Connie admits that the story is unusual and a bit humorous, but she says it’s also serious because it involves a young man who she and the rest of the sisters pray turns his life around. (Fox News)

“I will pray that his life changes so that he doesn’t come to the point when he needs to steal or he needs to break into people’s houses,” Sister Connie said. (Kansas City Star)

That, my friends, is the heart of the story. Two courageous women named Sister Catarina da Silva and Sister Connie Boulch who step up to the plate and act to protect the local community and to reach out to a troubled teenager. Two women who humbly but confidently redirect the cameras from themselves to the well-being of a young man named Cory whose dignity they did not forget. Two women who have the strength to challenge wrong-doing and the grace to believe in redemption.

Father Jim Martin’s article The New Yorker Has Its “Fun with Nuns” about Paul Rudnick’s article has generated a lot of interesting discussion. There’s one comment in particular that I’d like to highlight (thanks to Jean for alerting me to it).

The comment is from “RP”, a religious sister ministering in Los Angeles.

… Thank you for what you wrote about sisters and how The New Yorker article depicted us, mocked us. I have been a religious for 42 years. I have met my share of “interesting” sisters; some with very heavy burdens that came to bear on the community as well. What the writer Paul Rudnick  failed to note is that religious communities are microcosms of society; almost every group is. We are human, but we are trying to be our best selves for love of God and others.

What surprised me is that whatever mix-match of writers and film makers came up with the hodgepodge of “Sister Act,” they got some parts right. My favorite scene is when the nuns raid the ice cream after a day of working hard in the neighborhood. That was so real. Maybe he’s fixating on the pre-transformed Maggie Smith mother superior character. He is believing his own stereotypes. That sense of belonging and community is what energizes gives so many of us to keep going for the sake of the Gospel. Then there is the scene between Whoppi and the novice. How does a writer get some parts so right and then forget? Maybe he wrote all the inaccurate parts of the film.

… All I mean to say is, Rudnick can mock, but he cannot win. Maybe he’s trying to be another Christopher Hitchens. God help us. These people are so much work.

The person making a difference last night on NBC news was a nun from Boston … a beautiful profile.

Anyway, thanks for taking on The New Yorker. Although I am an educator I find that defending against bias can sap ones energy; I prefer to engage in the media in a positive way by educating future media makers to work from the premise of human dignity and the common good.

And you know what? We just keep going. If we were not living and ministering for the love of God and people, we would never have stayed. It is why we stay.

I don’t know who Sister “RP” is, but I sense that she has a lot of “ballast in the boat” … a grounded woman whose trust and faith in God and in Religious Life is far greater than anyone’s mockery or derision. I particularly like her line, “I prefer to engage in the media in a positive way by educating future media makers to work from the premise of human dignity and the common good.”

What are some ways that we can engage in a positive way? A) to present Catholic sisters and nuns on their own terms, not as caricatures or mystical creatures or objects of derision; and B) to encourage the media (and ourselves) to approach ALL persons “from the premise of human dignity and the common good.”

By the way, be sure to check out the NBC piece that Sister “RP” mentioned: Flying Nun’ Takes Good Works Around the World on NBC’s Making a Difference feature (NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, July 14, 2009)

Father James Martin, SJ, has written a fine response to Paul Rudnick’s article “Fun with Nuns” in The New Yorker (July 20, 2009 issue). Rudnick’s article covers his efforts to get a screenplay (that would eventually end up as “Sister Act”) produced. But his attitude toward and descriptions of nuns is more than “slightly repellent” as Father Martin writes, it’s disparaging and insulting. It illustrates in bold relief negative stereotypes of Catholic nuns and sisters.

Pondering a possible screenplay using nuns, Rudnick muses that they can be “dictatorial, sexually repressed and scary.”  A grumpy elderly nun at a convent gift store looks like a “bat” or a “long fossilized chimp.”  “’I hate this!’ the chimp yipped,” he writes about the elderly woman who has taken vows of “silence, poverty and chastity” (fact checkers–you missed a vow: obedience) and has led what even she describes a “hard life.”  Rudnick admits that the prioress of Regina Laudis, which he visits to do a full two days’ research, is “kind and helpful,” but most of the article depicts the nuns—scratch that, all nuns–as at best cartoonish, at worst absurd.  “’Nuns,’ I declared,” writes Rudnick about his efforts to cajole studio execs into considering them attractive, “I’d do ‘em!”  (Later the same execs wonder which nuns in the upcoming movie are “f—able.”)

The nuns referred to are the sisters of the Regina Laudis monastery (read the A Nun’s Life post about Mother Delores Hart From Hollywood to Benedictine Monastery).

Do read Paul Rudnick’s piece Fun with Nuns (the link is to an abstract of the article — need to register for full article) and James Martin’s response The New Yorker Has Its “Fun with Nuns”.

American fashion model and actress Heather Graham recently revealed that her parents threatened to send her to a convent when she was young.

The Hangover star has admitted that she almost became a nun and is relieved she became an actress instead.

Graham told the Daily Star: “When I was a child my parents threatened to send me to a convent. I’d have made a terrible nun.

“I’m a good Catholic girl in the way Madonna is in the sense that I’m not that good at all… I want to be vamping it up in short skirts and low-cut tops to the end.” (source: Digital Spy)

I always find these news items to be curious (e.g., Natalie Portman’s celibacy issues). It seems the contrast between the stereotypical docile/dour/suppressed Catholic nun and the rebellious/vivacious/sensual bad girl makes for great entertainment news.

Yeah, yeah, so readers get a few laughs at imagining a “bad girl” as a Catholic nun and the fantastic havoc and scandal she may have created within the holy confines of a convent. But please, must we play on bad stereotypes of Catholic sisters and nuns for a cheap laugh? Is it worth fueling a stereotype of nuns as docile/dour/suppressed in order to fuel an equally disturbing stereotype of women as “the bad girl”?

When I first read this news piece, I thought little of it. But it’s been weighing on my mind and heart because it seems so trivial but yet reinforces a negative message about Catholic sisters and nuns.

I want to tell Ms. Graham that if she only knew how many hell-raisers and “bad girls” have come to the convent — and stayed — that she would probably have seemed like a wall flower in comparison.

There’s nothing more titillating than a headline like “Lap dancing nun to perform for cardinals and bishops”. A clever headline? Perhaps. But a fair one? No. The headline plays off the worst of stereotypes (and fantasies) about women, authority, and relationships between nuns and clergy.

The headline introduces an article in the UK newspaper Telegraph. “Lap Dancing Nun to perform for cardinals and bishops” (April 3, 2009) includes the more accurate subtitle “An Italian lap dancer turned nun is to perform a religious dance in front of an audience of Roman Catholic cardinals and bishops.”

“So what’s wrong with an attention-grabbing headline and a little fun, Sister Julie? It’s just a headline after all.”

Yeah, yeah. It’s not that I’m against provocative headlines, one of my more recent ones being Nuns, Sex, and Knitting. But I think there’s got to be some integrity in what is written. The fact is that the “lap dancing nun” is a Catholic Sister named Anna Nobili who expressly says that she has given up her lap dancing (and other activities). So she is not a “lap dancing nun” as the headline incorrectly states. But by the time we get to the subtitle and to the actual article (which continues playing with the stereotypes mentioned above), it’s too late. We’ve got an image in our mind that’s difficult to remove even after we’ve read the article. And the fact of the matter is, many Internet readers never make it past a headline (which is why we try so hard to make them click-worthy).

So what’s wrong with this kind of editorial choice of headlines? A few extra clicks are gained at the expense of reinforcing negative stereotypes about Catholic sisters and nuns.

I am not impressed.