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.

Indie films are some of my most favorite movies. I love the fresh, unconventional, and truly “independent” spirit of these films and the people who make them happen. Sometimes these films make their way to the masses – Slumdog Millionaire is a perfect example — and sometimes not so much. Still, many are worth seeing just for the sheer ingenuity and creativeness that they embody.

Nun of That may not be the next greatest indie film since Slumdog but its trailer has left me with a sense of curiosity about the film.

“After being gunned down in an alley, [Sister Kelly Wrath] ascends to heaven to receive training from some of the great figures of religious mythology. She is then set back to Earth to join the other members of the Order of the Black Habit, a group of supernatural vigilante nuns, as they fight evil and seek revenge against the mob.”

Now before you start clicking around to learn more about Nun of That, I have to warn you that the film is (minimally) R-rated, it is of the horror genre, and it makes a point of promoting blasphemy (the movie premieres on Good Friday this year). It plays on the absolute worst stereotypes of Catholic sisters and nuns and represents them with the “usual” erotica mix: sex, violence, sacredness, profanity, dominance, and submission. In no way do I recommend it as an accurate portrayal of women religious. Absolutely not.

So why am I writing about it? Well, for a couple of reasons. One is to provide a place that people searching for info on this movie might stumble upon and perhaps stick around for a bit to learn about who Catholic sisters and nuns really are. Two, is because frankly I am fascinated and amused (in the incredulous kind of way) by this movie and want to try to understand why these stereotypes are so compelling to people. Indie movies put these kind of things in bold relief for us, and so for me it’s a kind of study to see what folks are thinking so that I can understand it and also address it.

With all that being said, I have to say I am rather fond of one line in the movie: “We are nuns. We don’t know the meaning of the word fear. We are strong, dedicated women who laugh in the face of danger.” In spite of the violence, blasphemy, stereotypes, and abundant cliches, there is something to be said for a film that presents nuns as “strong, dedicated women” who work to fight injustice.

It’s just that we typically don’t use hand grenades and ninja stars to accomplish our mission.

Monday is Nunday! … at least for today. My folder of emailed nun photos is empty. Alas, there are no more photos of real Catholic sisters and nuns. Nunday can only go forward with your support.

Nunday is an opportunity to present the world with real images of nuns, instead of the cutesie caricatures and erotica that seems to dominate the genre of nun imagery on the Internet. It’s a chance to reclaim nun imagery so that when nuns are portrayed, they are presented authentically as themselves, not as a caricature with some ridiculous caption and being stripped of their name and their story.

So what do you have to do? Check out my post Nun Photos – Got em? Send em! which gives you all the info you need. Know a nun? Ask to take her picture. Are you a nun or sister? You’ve got to have some pictures of your community someplace!

This photo comes from an article published last year in the San Diego Union-Tribune called A Guiding Light by Sandi Dolbee (June 8, 2008).

Pictured is Sister Ursula Doherty, RSM, a Sister of Mercy, who was featured in the newspaper upon her retirement after teaching for 33 years at Saint Vincent school in San Diego.

Be sure to read the whole story as it’s a beautiful tribute to a wonderful nun.

The

end.

The Flying Nun is an icon in many people’s imagination — whether Catholic or non-Catholic, whether you saw the originals or just the re-runs. The Flying Nun was a sitcomin the late 1960s starring a young comic Sally Field as Sister Bertrille, a novice with the Daughters of Charity who could fly. Admittedly I dismissed the Flying Nun image as an unfortunate stereotype that we Catholic sisters and nuns still have to tangle with. Inevitably I’m asked, once people find out I’m a nun, if I can fly. The answer (not counting biking or driving) is um, no.

But I think I have had a conversion, or at least the beginnings of one. This morning I read an op-ed piece that made me proud to share the word “nun” with the Flying Nun. The article “Fear of Flying Nuns – a feminist defense of a 1960s girlhood TV hero” was written by Melody Clark for OpEdNews.com. In the article Clark wonders aloud why it’s perfectly acceptable to have a flying Kansas farmboy (Superman, Smallville) but not a flying young female nun. (Her commentary here is exquisite.) While I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the article, it did give me a different way to think about the image of the Flying Nun.

Here’s a snippet from the article.

And Sister Bertrille was no “owned woman” like the female lead in I Dream of Jeannie (constantly clad in provocative attire while she refers to her male companion as “master”).  Or a housewife who was regularly “ordered” to do things by her husband as was Samantha on Bewitched. Sister Bertrille (whose “real name” was Elsie Ethrington) was not a nun but a novice and therefore not yet “married to Christ”. The only man in her life was her companion of choice (the wonderfully harassed while continually love struck Carlos Ramirez). Her life was her own. Her career was her choice. She owed her gift of flight to no one but destiny.

Quite simply, The Flying Nun is a sweet, lovely allegory for personal empowerment (especially for little girls … and for those of us who occasionally aspire to think like them)….

I encourage you to read the whole article which critiques reviewers who have cast aside The Flying Nun as “the worst TV show of all time”. Clark redeems the show as well as the image of The Flying Nun and in effect reclaims Sister Bertrille as a young woman who can inspire us even today.

Sister Act movies have long been a source of entertainment but also a problem when it comes to communicating who Catholic sisters and nuns really are. Unfortunately many people’s image of nuns is based solely on Whoopi Goldberg as lounge singer Deloris Van Cartier hiding out as Sister Mary Clarence in a San Francisco convent (do we even know the religious community?). Each of the nuns portrayed in the movie is naturally a caricature but still the images are compelling enough that they tend to seep into our imagination and to feed false stereotypes: stern mother superior, quiet mousy little sister, bubbly bumbling nun.

And honestly, people, do nuns really need a Vegas lounge singer to enlighten them to the needs that are literally right outside their convent door?

But enough about what I may think, I’m much more interested in what you think because I’m still not sure what to do with these movies. In some way they can lend themselves to positive perceptions of nun life but in other way to negative or false perceptions.

Sister Act movies, Whoopi, and images of nuns: discuss.

An Italian priest is organizing an online beauty pageant for Catholic nuns “to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.”

Are you kidding me? A reader of my blog sent me a link about this story. At first I thought the beauty content was a joke, but when I started reading the article and then another person sent me the same story from MSNBC (so it must be true ), I was astounded.

Here’s a snippet about the “Miss Sister 2008″ contest:

The “Miss Sister 2008″ contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.

“Nuns are a bit excluded, they are a bit marginalized in ecclesiastical life,” Rungi told The Associated Press after Italian media carried reports of the idea. “This will be an occasion to make their contribution more visible.”

According to the article, people who visit Rungi’s blog can “vote for the nun they consider a model.” The rest of the brief article includes additional information such as Rungi’s assessment that “being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun” and that the beauty contest will not have nuns parading around in bathing suits. Great.

While I applaud Rungi’s desire to promote the good work that Catholic nuns are doing, I am appalled by the technique with which he is doing it. Granted, maybe something got lost in translation, but the whole idea is offensive to me as a Catholic nun. Here are some thoughts of the top of my head:

1. All Catholic nuns are not old and dour. I for one am neither of those, and frankly, if I were, so what? God calls whomever God desires — the young, the old, the sweet, the quiet, the energetic, the thoughtful. Religious life is so diverse and can encompass all sorts of personalities, passions, and callings.
2. Pitting nuns against one another in a contest is just plain wrong. If we’re talking a game of 3-on-3 basketball, that’s a different story. Why not create a blog that profiles different sisters and celebrates each of them instead of making it into a contest which is just plain weird?
3. Honestly, is a beauty contest the best way to address the “marginality of nuns in ecclesiastical life”? By having a beauty contest, Rungi is reinforcing the far deeper stereotype that a woman’s worth resides in how she looks and that she is only really capable of measuring up against other women.
4. Catholic nuns and sisters are doing extraordinary things for God, the Church, and the world. We do not need to showcase ourselves: we live our charism day in and day out. Even the so-called dour nuns do this! It’s that commitment to living religious life fully that is what is attractive to other people.

I know you have thoughts running through your head so please join the conversation with me and other readers and offer your thoughts.

After reading a post about sci-fi nuns in a forum, I wondered why the sci-fi nun is so compelling to people. Frankly I think real nuns are way more cool than fictitious nuns. Write a novel about a nun’s quest for justice, a religious community’s care for abused children, a nun’s dedication to community and poverty in a society that values individualism and consumerism. Now that would be awesome.

To highlight the diversity of how nuns have given radical witness to the gospel and to the goodness of life, here’s a sampling of news stories from just the last few days …

Nun spent her life fighting for the homeless and against war and nuclear arms – “Faith was Flats protester’s arsenal” by Virginia Culver for The Denver Post (August 10, 2008)

Nun gives life to teaching and hospital work – “Beloved Sister Cecilia turns 95″ by Brenda Levins McCorkle for The Daily News Online (Longview, WA) (August 9, 2008)

Carmelite nun Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta) martyred 66 years ago – “The Life and Death of a German Jewish Christian Nun by Roderick Strange for The Times Online (UK) (August 8, 2008)

Nun ministers in and around New Orleans – “Marking an Anniversary: Congregation celebrates nun’s 50 years of service” by Eva Jacob Barkoff for The Times-Picayune (New Orleans) (August 7, 2008)

Would love to hear your comments (especially my sci-fi buddy Jen!)

Just read this via the Buffalo News (June 20, 2008) in their “Distractions” column in the Life section (source).

BOOK: Give nuns a chance Did you know that Eva Mendes and Anne Rice wanted to be one? Did you know an impostor posing as one can make $600 a day, panhandling on New York City streets?

Did you know it takes three to nine years to become one?

Nuns. You’ve got to admit – they’re fascinating. That’s why the little book, “Nuns Having Fun,” (Workman, $8, in bookstores) is so addictive. Packed full of nun photographs, nun trivia, nun Q-and-A’s, and more, it’s hard to put down. Try the page full of “nun translations” and see if you don’t laugh out loud.

I am speechless at the moment. I don’t know if I want to laugh and dismiss this book as harmless humor or cry out in rage at yet another product that perpetuates stereotypes of nuns.

Hmmm …. I’m leaning towards the latter, but having not read the book yet, I do not want to do it injustice though from the cover and the publisher’s past history of publishing “nuns having fun” calendars, I don’t think my current rant will be all that off track. But just to be a person of integrity, I will wait until I see the book (I hate to buy it but since I’m in the business of writing about religious life and nuns, I have to be able to respond to such things).

In the meantime, a few observations …

Humor about nuns is not a bad thing. It’s okay to laugh at Sister Act or reminisce about when Sister Mary So-and-So did x-and-such. Having a set of “Ale Mary” beer napkins is perfectly fine. However, what happens is that these funny nun stories, nun kitsch, and crazy nun pictures end up creating an inauthentic, false, and indeed offensive image of Catholic nuns and religious life.

Stereotype #1 – All Catholic school nuns were harsh and mean. This stereotype is seen in products such as Nunzilla wind-up toys (tagline: “clutching a Bible in one hand and a ruler in the other, this holy terror will have you owning up to transgressions from as far back as birth”) and boxing nun paraphenalia (tagline: “Punch you. Bless you. Punch you. Bless you”).

Stereotype #2 – Nuns are cute. This stereotype is seen in images of nuns in habits which are given funny (and usually false) captions. Nuns truly having fun is a great thing and pictures of such things are fine, but often these pictures are made fun of or exist outside of any context of who that nun is or what religious life is all about. Some just think it’s plain funny to see a habited nun drinking beer or having a smoke or riding a roller coaster. The nun — the woman herself — is reduced to a caricature and therefore dehumanized into a cute nun who exists for our amusement and derision.

Stereotype #3 – Nuns are either asexual or highly sexually charged. This stereotypes works both extremes. When we dehumanize nuns, we take away everything about them, including their sexuality. This can be seen in portrayals of nuns in which the nun has no feminine characteristics and in portrayals of nuns as excessively naive about sexuality and sexual attraction. On the other extreme, nuns are portrayed as highly sexually charged (remember the Boston magazine ad featuring nuns?). Nuns are seen as women who are desperate to engage in sexual activity — be it flirting, coming on to another person, or constantly fantisizing. In many comic books, video games, movies, strip clubs, and pretty much most forms of “entertainment”, images of nuns are grossly sexualized and made into pornography.

Think what I’m writing is over the top? or that we should just laugh this off? Go to google.com right now and type in the word “nun” in the search box. When you get to the search results page, click on “Images” in the  blue bar at the top left of the page. What do you get? Pages and pages of images of nuns, most of which are not of real nuns or are the cute caricatures of nuns.

I could go on, but thinking about all this is beginning to make me physically ill. Why? First of all because I am a nun and I bump up against these stereotypes (and others) every day. Every day. Second, but equally important is because these stereotypes do a major injustice to the real women who have given their lives to serving God, people, and all of God’s creation. Thirdly, these stereotypes do an injustice to the Catholic Church and to religious life. So much nun kitsch and nun stereotypes can prevent people from seeing the beauty of religious life as a possibility for their own life or for someone they know.

You might think that this is a case of the “secular” world abusing our Catholic life. But sadly, Catholics are often the first ones to post cute nun pictures on their blogs or poke fun at a habited nun.

Yesterday I went to a great lecture at Loyola University called “A Question of Habit: The Curious Image of Nuns in Film and Popular Culture” by Professor Bren Ortega Murphy. Dr. Murphy is in the process of making a documentary film that examines the wide variety of visual images of Catholic nuns and sisters used in contemporary U.S. popular culture.

For the most part, said Murphy, nuns have been portrayed as one-dimensional characters. You get no sense of who the nun is, her moral agency, her way of life, her ministry, etc.

Murphy noted that in the history of film-making, Hollywood has had great difficulty in portraying women in general. Combine this with Hollywood’s uncertainty of how to deal with religion and one can begin to understand how portrayals of nuns (women+religious) has been exceedingly difficult for Hollywood. The result (however amusing and nostalgic) has been to portray nuns one-dimensionally, often reducing them to blatant caricatures. Sadly you can still see this in many media portrayals of nuns today.

Some examples of caricatures and stereotypes that I’ve seen:

• mean nuns with rulers
• hapless nuns
• giggling gaggles of nuns
• nuns always in full traditional habit
• sexually repressed nuns
• nameless nuns
• nuns who are theologically unsophisticated
• unquestioning nuns
• ethereal nuns who float in and then mysteriously disappear

Murphy said that there seemed to be a resistance, a hesitancy to portraying nuns (and women) as full human beings, with full moral agency, thoughts, questions, joys, fears, strength, etc. in the context of their life. Instead, nuns were dealt with by trivializing them (the hapless nun), demonizing them (mean nun with ruler), or sexualizing them (sexually-repressed nun).

So are there some good portrayals of nuns out there on the silver screen? Absolutely, said Murphy. Among those she noted “The Trouble with Angels”, “Brides of Christ” and “Dead Man Walking”.

Films about nuns coming to a theatre near you … soon: Our Lady of Victory (my post on the Mighty Macs) and Doubt: A Parable, a play which is being made into a movie. And be sure to look for Dr. Murphy’s documentary on visual images of nuns today.

And for my own fascinating reviews on nuns in movies check out: The Nun and The Blues Brothers. You’ll also find all sorts of interesting things when you type “stereotype” into the search box at the top of my blog.

I am regularly asked about stereotypes that people have about nuns and how, prior to becoming a nun myself, those stereotypes were busted for me. I’m interested to know from you what you see as nun stereotypes, either because you are a nun and have bumped up against them, and/or because you had a stereotype that was busted, and/or see various stereotypes played out in movies, TV, culture, etc. Don’t be shy!

P.S. Click here for one of my first posts about nun stereotypes.

P.S. By stereotype I am referring to a “gross often mistaken generalization”; “something conforming to a fixed or general pattern; especially : a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment” (Merriam-Webster).

I’ve finally begun reading Kenneth Briggs’s Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns. Doubleday, the publisher, has not made it easy to want to pick up this book and read it. The title of the book is a bit too sensational for my tastes, and the cover art of a nun in full habit looking like she’s just been betrayed big time is definitely a turn off. But, nevertheless, I persevered and was able to move beyond the first few pages. The preface begins with the following:

No figure has etched a more indelible impression on the nation’s psyche than the nun. A vivid picture of the sister wrapped in a mysterious bundle of wool, with only a cameo of her face showing through, remains deeply imbedded in the mind’s eye of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Sisters are the stuff of legend, fixtures in a cascade of plays, movies, television shows, Xerox comercials, and endless kitsch. (Preface, ix)

Having grown up in the post-Vatican II era, my encounters with those “mysterious bundles of wool” were few and far between. For me, the mystique of sisters was equal to that of police offers and fire-fighters in full garb, university professors in academic regalia, nurses in their scrubs, or martial artists in their traditional gis (uniforms). They represented people whom I was in awe of — whether because of their healing abilities, athletic abilities, broad knowledge, or courage. As a kid, I may not have wanted to do the kinds of things they were doing, but I did want to be the kind of person I perceived each one of them to be. The same is true of the nuns I knew. I admired these women of faith, witty humor, wisdom, and prayer. For most of my life, however, I never wanted to be a nun; I just wanted to be that kind of person. And lo and behold I find myself an actual nun now. It seems that the whole package suited me (I still find that surprising). Not that I am all those things, but I choose to mark my life by my pursuit of those things. For me, I am becoming more and more myself through this path. Indeed, religious life has been for me its own little “mysterious bundle.”

Amy Welborn, who has written a number of books for us at Loyola Press, has a cool blog called Open Book. On August 4, 2006, she blogged about the book Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns by Kenneth Briggs. She also reviewed the article from the National Catholic Register that I recently reviewed in this blog. I resonated with Welborn’s take on the book from my very brief impressions of the book so far. I just got the book today so I’ll begin my review of it shortly.

Check out Amy Welborn’s blog Open Book and her website AmyWelborn.com.

Read Amy Welborn’s blog on Double Crossed here.

I just read a very interesting article called “Where have the nuns gone? Orders thriving despite ‘double-cross’ claim” on Catholic Online that was originally published in National Catholic Register (8/3/6). In the article the perspectives of two nuns on religious life are set in contrast.

The article centers around a new book by former New York Times religion editor Kenneth Briggs. The book is called Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns(Doubleday). Although I have not yet seen the book, the title and description of the book lead me to conclude that it may have a provocative edge to it (just a guess). You can be assured that a review of that book will be forthcoming in this blog. The other book mentioned in the article is Joseph Varacalli’s The Catholic Experience in America (Greenwood Press) which takes a very different stance than Double Crossed. (Note: my hermeneutics of suspicion compels me to note that both authors are men … while I’m sure I will learn from their books, I’m a little suspicious of anyone “defining” or “categorizing” or making judgments about nuns who do not (and, in this case, cannot) live the lifestyle of women religious. I am surprised that the author of the article did not note this and balance the books with any of the countless books on religious life written by women religious.)

A number of observations made in the article seemed legitimate: the differing perspectives on religious life, the effects of Vatican II on religious life (especially women religious), and the dynamic tension between remaining who you are as a congregation and adjusting to meet the signs of the times (my words, not the article’s).

However, I have to say that I was very disappointed in the article because it basically pitted two contrasting perspectives (and nuns) against one another. I was left feeling like a whole dialogue on religious life was left out and that the state of religious life in the American Church (the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious and the Leadership Council of Women Religious both represent women religious in the United States) was distilled to merely two perspectives that were placed in opposition to one another. The truth of the matter is that there is far more dialogue that goes one within and between these national councils and the sisters they represent. Congregations contain a wonderful mix of sisters with varying perspectives on their call, religious life in general, the Church, ministry, prayer, etc. This is good and healthy. In addition, every congregation struggles with the question of how to remain true to their founders vision and to their own calling while at the same time adapt to what Vatican II called “the signs of the times.”

Read the article here: “Where have the nuns gone? Orders thriving despite ‘double-cross’ claim.”

Yesterday I had lunch with a couple of colleagues at a local “Capt’n Nemos,” a Chicago-based restaurant featuring the fabulous Chicago Style Sandwich (traditional Italian bread loaded with meats and cheeses). At every booth in the restaurant there are painted wood cutouts of various characters. When you slide into the seat of the booth, it’s like you are sitting with Grandma and a punk rocker, a friendly police man, or the Blues Brothers and the infamous nun, Sister Mary Stigmata — better known as “The Penguin” (played by Kathleen Freeman).

The painting in the restaurant has Sister Mary Stigmata between the two brothers, an ear of each held firmly in hand. Of course you can’t mistake her as a nun: she’s in full habit. Nor can you mistake her sinister demeanor. She looks angry, mean, and downright scary. Having not seen the movie (I was not even 10 years old when it came out), I could tell by the caricature alone that the portrayal of nuns in that movie was not going to be pretty.

1. The nun is repeatedly referred to as The Penguin. Why? because the black and white habit resembles penguins that are black and white from head to toe (flipper?).
2. The nun is portrayed as the mean nun who runs the orphanage in which Elwood and Jake are raised. Here’s how she is described in reviews: fussy, ruler-wielding, strict, supernatural, “a very strict disciplinarian,” tough, crazy, scary.

Unfortunately, it is movies like this that cement in people’s minds really bad stereotypes of nuns. Granted, the movie is a classic and people seem to love the portrayal of Sister Mary Stigmata. But the problem is that, since many people don’t know real live nuns or sisters, they automatically assume that nuns are categorically this way. When people find out that I am a nun (as I do not wear a readily obvious habit), most times their main source of comparison is with a badly stereotyped nun character in a movie like the Blues Brothers. “I guess I can’t lie to you because you are a nun.” — yeah, I’ve heard that; now I know where it comes from. “Do you sing and play guitar?” — not on your life; thank you Sound of Music. I sigh and tell them to go see Dead Man Walking for a more accurate movie portrayal of a real live nun — Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ. (More on Helen Prejean later.)

You never know where nuns will get “honorable” mention–whether fact or fiction. In this case, the questionable comment came during a tour of Chicago’s gangster history.

This afternoon I went on the Untouchable Tour … Chicago’s original gangster tour. True to its slogan, it was a blast. Our tour guide (and faux gangster) led us through the streets of Chicago recalling its gangster past. As we pulled up on North State Street downtown, the guide told us about the famous Chicago gangster Dean O’Banion. On our right was a parking lot that used to be the site of a flower shop. The shop was the legitimate front for O’Banion’s flower business (which proved profitable after many mob shooting funerals) and a hangout for O’Banion’s gang. Across the street was Holy Name Cathedral where O’Banion and his gangster buddy Hymie Weiss attended Mass. Our tour guide informed us that as a youth, O’Banion had been in the church choir there and attended its parochial school. And then the punchline … O’Banion goes from being the sweet altar boy type to a murdering gangster thanks to being taught by “the nuns.”

This joke got a few laughs from people on the bus. Yeah, it was temporarily amusing to think about the sheer contrast between altar boy and gangster. But, the implication is that the nuns were so mean or oppressive to the young impressionable “Deannie” that he turned into a gangster and killer. I don’t think so. (Perhaps his transformation into a gangster was due instead to being a member of the Little Hellions, the juvenile division of the Bloody Market Streeters. Just a guess.)

The offhand comment reflects a bad stereotype of Catholic nuns. While there may have been teacher-nuns who were unduly rigid, the vast majority were excellent educators who cared deeply for the spiritual well-being of the children in their care. So, is it worth a few laughs to denigrate a whole group of women whose primary purpose was to educate and care for children? I don’t think so.