Permit Me To Rant

Right On! Sister Julie thank you for the “rant” – I loved it. And you are right about Catholics often being the first ones to make fun of a habited nun. BTW I am a former Monroe County, MI resident. Great work by the IHM sisters. I was pleasantly surprised by all of IHM’s eco-friendly and “go green” activities. Keep up the great work. Your vocation and how you live it is inspiring.

Had to see for myself. The book is written by Maureen Kelly and Jeffrey Stone. They are listed as the authors of Growing Up Catholic. The book is basically a 15 minute read- mostly photos with more “cute” than offensive captions. The most “scandalous” of the photos show some sisters smoking. Most show nuns engaged in athletic endeavors- target shooting, skiing, skating, soccer, bowling, karate, etc. What would be more interesting to me would be to learn the real history behind some of the photos.

Indeed, I think the “humor” comes from these women engaged in activities for which the habit is so inappropriate and uncomfortable looking. (Of course, as a guy, I think doing those activities in a skirt or dress would be uncomfortable.) If anything, one has to admire the gumption and resourcefulness of the sisters in participating in such diverse sports in such garb. Perhaps the photos could be used as exhibits in the debate about mandatory, all-the-time, habit wearing?

There is some historical information about nuns, orders, different types of habits, etc. Most of it is actually reverential. In the introduction, the authors state that nuns in habits have become iconic in pop culture, but they remind the readers that “The reality is that hundreds of thousands of Catholic nuns continue to dedicate their lives to the service of God and others, especially those most in need around the world.” Amen to that!

Anytime I hear that comment about nuns and rulers hitting kids I make it clear that was NOT my experience. When those kids were being whacked, they were also being whacked at home and in public schools. It was a different time! I have nothing but wonderful memories of being taught by a group of God loving women, who to this day I love and respect! In this time of everything be politically correct, why do people think its okay to have boxing Nunzilla. If they did that to a woman of another religion there would be an outcry of foul play. I thank all the Sisters for their service, especially SSJ-TOSF!

Hi Sister Julie, I just did a google image search for Nun and am absolutely horrified. As a novice sister I do come up against some of the stereotypes but I don’t think I’m always aware of them. Those images are such a sad, tragic distortion of what so many wonderful women have been and have given to the world. Good on you for speaking up. Sarah

Oy vey, Maria. My day job is computer support, and I’ve seen a heck of a lot cleaning spyware and malware from people’s computers. But doing an image search for “nun” was far worse. In the interest of fairness, I searched for “Catholic priest” and didn’t find nearly so many offensive images. I found images of real priests on the first page, while it was about 3 pages into the image search that I found a real nun. (And that was a picture taken before Vatican II.)

I wonder if the problem is tied into the objectification of women. That is, women are still seen as sex objects foremost, and people secondly. On the other side, you get those who think any woman religious isn’t legit, if she doesn’t wear a habit, perhaps another kind of fetish.

Melissa, Don’t allow what others might think or say keep you from loving God and serving God’s people. People who make comments about religious life really have no personal frame of reference. By your example and zeal for life you can teach them. You are in my prayers. Blessings on finding the religious community God is calling you to. Pax, Sister Nicolette

I won’t let other people stop me. I just wonder where people get some of these ideas. I know that I want to be a nun.

There’s a widely popularized video and other artifacts where women are taking their clothes off and it’s titled “Girls Having Fun.” It could be that the writers were making a contrast between “Girls Having Fun” (a porn-natured video) and “Nuns Having Fun” (clean fun). In other words, they’re just making a distinction between the two lifestyles.

I’m not Catholic, but I’ve always held a reverence to nuns. That’s the way I was taught. I was seven years old when I saw a nun shopping at K-Mart and my mother told me to be quiet around the nuns, because they were God’s chosen. From that time on – I wanted to be one.

I think nuns are mostly revered and respected.

The most infuriating part about this whole issue for me is, as DJC mentioned, that it’s considered acceptable to make fun of Catholic nuns (Don’t do it with Buddhist nuns – they are considered “cool.”). But if you try to do that with other religious women, such as Muslims in burkas or Hasidic Jews in black dresses and wigs, there is anything from outcry and lawsuits to downright violence and death threats. I’m really tired of all this politically correct garbage.

As a Catholic and as a woman myself, I don’t like to see nuns mocked. It’s offensive. This is all especially ludicrous because all of these false images of sisters bear like NO resemblance to the reality! They are not monolithic, few wear traditional, long habits, just about all are highly educated (not adverse to thinking for themselves), etc. The list is endless. These bogus media/popular culture images are simply untrue, a farce, complete fiction. I remember the old Shakespeare quote, “I don’t suffer fools gladly.” To me, I don’t suffer stupidity gladly. All these false images of sisters are downright stupidity.

I do think alot of this mockery derives from the anti-women, misogynistic tendancies in our society. Although we have come a long way in this country, predjudice and discrimination against women are still alive and well.

Throughout the ages, men have feared women. That is one of the reasons they have oppressed them. That is also one of the reasons the Protestant reformers disbanded female religious orders. It is one scary thing to have a bunch of women living together with little control from men! How subversive is that?

Dee, All I can say, as I have stated before, is that my lifetime experience has been very positive with nuns. I have not been exposed to circles where the mocking of nuns is “politically correct.” Nor would I be silent about the injustice were I to find myself in such a circle.

On the other hand, my experience has been that, on many levels, Muslims and African-Americans in America enjoy much less “protection” and “immunity” from “profiling,” “stereotyping,” and prejudice than nuns. History, including recent history, probably does not list them as “special” or “protected” in any way that would be complimentary to the majority culture.

as a filipino residing in the united states, i have been in a number of unpleasant situations due to my skin color. to compare nuns with the plight of the burka-wearing muslims and african americans is a distortion of reality. one would not know the extent of the marginalization of these groups until one immerses oneself in their community.

as someone who personally knows a lot of nuns, priests, and brothers from different orders here and abroad (went to four different catholic schools from kindergarten all the way to university) and lucky enough to be teaching in an elementary public school in diverse new york city, nuns and other religious have it so much better compared with muslims, african-americans, et al.