Lesbian nuns tell their stories in new book that reflects changing times

“Love Tenderly: Sacred Stories of Lesbian and Queer Religious” is out new this year from New Ways Ministry press.

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I must know at least 1,000 nuns. (Though they are actually called “women religious” or “sisters.”) They taught me. I studied with them. We lived in the seminary with them. I’ve said Mass for several women congregations. We ministered together. I attended retreats given by them. They have been spiritual directors. I’ve written about them.

Yet, not once have I said to myself, “This nun is a lesbian.” And I think it’s because of my respect and reverence for them.

After reading two ground-breaking books about lesbian nuns, though, I think it’s the opposite. I had internalized the historic shame for same-sex feelings. Or, it simply does not matter.

The recently released “Love Tenderly” tells the story of 23 sisters coming to grips with their sexual orientation in the context of religious life. The contemporary work reflects a different milieu than the first ground-breaking, sensational “Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence,” published in 1985, which told 47 nuns’ stories. Jarring, it became an international hit because the words “lesbian” and “nun” had never been uttered in the same sentence in such a public way before. It also gave the curious a peek behind the convent walls that was not always flattering.

“Love Tenderly” oozes with tolerance and sensitivity, not only by the sisters telling their sometimes painful coming-out stories, but also of more accepting religious leadership in their communities.

Religious life in the U.S. has changed dramatically over the last 36 years.

'Lesbian Nuns'
“Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence” was originally published in 1985 and re-issued in 2013.

Years ago, young women entering Catholic orders were warned about “particular friendships,” which could be code for lesbians, and reminded to be friends with all sisters. But many women did bond and some crossed the line into sexual intimacy. When discovered, some were asked to leave the community or go for counseling or they were shamed.

Sister Kathleen Tuite — at 56, one of the youngest in the Dominican Sisters’ Caldwell order — is a product of the new formation. Entering the order at 25, she did her novitiate — or first period of formation — at a collaborative Dominican center in St. Louis with 10 other Dominican novices from all over the country. Unlike the closed environment in Caldwell, her novitiate was more expansive and open, exposing her to newer currents among young religious aspirants. A Dominican sister suggested I speak with her because she has her finger on the pulse of contemporary religious life.

“It was a wonderful experience with people on the same journey,” said Tuite, who later taught at St. Dominic Academy in Jersey City.

Throughout the next two decades, she also attended programs as part of Giving Voice, a program for anywhere between 50 and 80 young sisters, also from all over the country, so they would have support and encouragement to persevere in religious life. They also embodied a new understanding of church “where all God’s people live in pure love, social justice and truth,” she said.

These kinds of insights, she said, enabled sisters identifying as same-sex to remain in religious life, embracing the vow of celibacy with dignity and not shame.

The two anthologies recount the stories of young women who felt their call to enter the convent as sacred. Some described their feelings of attraction to girls since they were young, but not one said she entered because she wanted to fall in love with another nun. Though many described how their coming out was made safe in the confines of the convent in the company of other women, most felt lonely at first until they could confide in other sisters. Many stayed, some left and some returned.

“Sister Petra,” a pseudonym for a former congregational leader locally told me that “sex was never ever discussed” when she entered the convent. The main emphasis was “how to live a celibate life with women.”

She did become aware of “some people who did identify as lesbian and chose to leave.” It was not the lifestyle for them but “it was a safe space for exploration.”

She views the issue of same-sex relations as one of justice and adds that “inclusivity is always an issue” — not only in the matter of treating gays with dignity. Most religious communities of women have advocated for any people being treated unjustly in the church, especially women.

“Women are exiting the church like crazy and it has to come to grips with this exodus,” she said.

Tuite is now the vice president of Student Life at Caldwell University, owned by her religious order.

“My life is around women who have donated their lives as I have grown stronger in my religious life and allowed to develop the gifts I had,” she said.

She could see openly gay and transgender women disposed toward living celibate lives accepted in most religious orders today.

“Sister Petra” agreed, adding “if you have a vocation and feel called to serve.”

Religious communities of women continue to break new ground and lead the church by example.

Complete Article HERE!

I was a nun for 2 decades before leaving the convent to be with a woman.

— I stood up to the church for our right to marry.

Monica Hingston was a nun for over two decades.

By Gary Nunn

  • Monica Hingston became a nun at 21 but left the convent when she fell in love with another nun.
  • They moved to a seaside town to live as soulmates — but never got the chance to be spouses.
  • This is Hingston’s story, as told to Gary Nunn.

At 21, I walked down the aisle on my “wedding” day wearing a traditional white dress and a huge train. After I spoke my vows, I walked into a room next to the cathedral. Two women presented me with an austere black gown and asked me to remove my wedding dress. Then they hacked off my hair.

Those two women were nuns. My groom was an unlikely man — Jesus Christ himself.

In 1962, this was known as “the reception” into the convent, and I had just become a nun.

I was an unlikely nun

I’d been a chain-smoking teenager with a motorbike-riding boyfriend, but I came from a religious family. My cousin Cardinal George Pell became one of the most powerful Catholics and the pope’s treasurer.

My mother didn’t want me to join the convent at all; she thought I was limiting my options in life. My dad, meanwhile, thought it was an honor from God. He had a brother who was a priest.

But I admired the nuns who taught me: They were nonmaterialistic people. They were intelligent, caring, and compassionate women doing good without expecting anything in return. I saw that their lives had value and they aspired to be the best human beings they could be — by helping others.

But being a nun tested my rebellious streak. Once, my cousin observed me teaching girls how to empower themselves. He dismissively accused me of teaching them “nothing but fairy floss.” When I was discovered reading a banned philosophy book, a superior said, “Careful. You can read your way out of the church.”

Other times, I questioned why we’d have to follow strange instructions, like moving furniture just to demonstrate blind obedience.

After over 2 decades in the convent, I considered leaving the church for good

I took a yearlong sabbatical and hitchhiked around South America. I was later posted in Chile, where I, along with two American nuns, established a center for struggling Chilean women.

One of the other nuns was named Peg. She’d been a nun for 25 years, and I had reached my 21st. We shared a passion for empowering oppressed women. We’d talk for hours. I hated leaving her at the end of each day.

One day, she confessed: “I don’t want you to leave, but I’m afraid to ask you to stay.”

My entire life changed at that point. Every road had led me to her. I realized I was falling deeply in love, and she felt the same.

We wrote to the pope requesting to be released from our vows, and he swiftly approved

We moved to Torquay, Australia, to live happily as a lesbian couple. There, Peg and I connected on every level. We hugged five or six times a day. We shared our fears and hopes. I’d never known happiness like it.

We wanted to get married — not in a church; by this point, I was firmly an atheist, and Peg was more agnostic. But in 2003, the church instructed Catholic politicians to actively oppose laws recognizing gay unions, calling those seeking them “depraved.” My cousin Pell aggressively backed these sentiments.

I wrote him a private letter challenging his homophobia by describing my relationship with my beautiful Peg.

“It is a rare and precious gift. A partnership of sensitivity and selflessness, of warmth and humor, of wonder and beauty,” I wrote, adding: “It daily enriches me, it empowers me to work for the wellbeing of others.”

A friend persuaded me to make the letter public after Pell ignored me. I reluctantly agreed, hoping it’d help others.

The next day, a man called. He said he’d felt isolated as a gay Catholic and wept at my letter in a newspaper, which made him feel less alone. I was shocked and couldn’t wait to tell Peg. I was just so happy to know we’d made a difference.

I received almost 200 similar calls and emails.

Peg and I were soulmates, but we never achieved our dream of marrying

In 2011, Peg was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer. She died three months later at 74. I was 70.

In her final letter to me, Peg wrote, “Owls symbolize intelligence, brilliance, perspective, intuition, quick wit, independence, wisdom, protection, mystery, and power. You are all of these, dearest Mon.”

Grief enveloped me. I stopped playing golf, listening to music, and dressing fancy — everything we loved together. I started living in a fog.

One morning, a year after her death, I heard crows attacking something in a small tree outside my house. I slowly raised my window blinds and froze in shock. It was an owl — a big, beautiful white barn owl with a heart-shaped face. It held my gaze for 15 minutes before flying away.

I finally felt the fog lift. I felt alive — and no longer alone.

Complete Article HERE!

Kicking the habit: two former nuns married in civil ceremony in Italy

Federica and Isabel fell in love while working at rehab center for drug addicts and renounced being nuns but say they have not lost their faith

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 Italy earlier this year legalized civil unions, angering the Vatican.
Italy earlier this year legalized civil unions, angering the Vatican.

Federica and Isabel’s love story was not that unusual, apart from one detail.

The affair, which culminated in a civil union this week in the Italian town of Pinerolo, began “slowly” according to their friend, Franco Barbero. The two had a lot in common, having both decided to devote their lives to charitable work.

They fell in love working at a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts, but there was just one hitch.

Both were already married to the Catholic church.

Federica and Isabel were Franciscan nuns when they met and fell in love, and have both since renounced their vocation and spoken out against the church’s position against homosexuality.

“God wants people happy, to live the love in the light of the sun,” Isabel recently told La Stampa, the Italian daily newspaper. The two brides said that they have not lost their faith and would not otherwise have wanted to leave the church.

“We call upon our church to welcome all people who love each other,” added Federica, her new bride.

The courtship and civil union comes about one year after a Vatican official, Krzysztof Charamsa, publicly abandoned the church after announcing that he was gay and in love. Charamsa was sacked and defrocked after admitting he was in love with another man.

The two women were joined in a civil union in a ceremony behind closed doors in Pinerolo’s city hall, about 24 hours before they had planned. The ceremony was supposed to take place on Thursday, but the time was changed after the media were alerted to the story and the couple wanted to avoid a media frenzy.

Luca Salvai, the Five Star Movement mayor who performed the ceremony, told La Stampa: “We have guaranteed the right to privacy for this couple, who asked for discretion.”

He added that the couple were expected to remain in Pinerolo, which is near the city of Turin.

“Yesterday morning they arrived by themselves, scared by all the clamor, and after the ceremony they left by themselves in silence, one next to the other,” Salvai said.

It was the second same sex civil union ceremony performed in the town of Pinerolo since Italy passed legislation to legalise same-sex unions earlier this year. The couple are also due to participate in a religious service by their friend, Barbero, a former priest who was suspended because of his support of gay marriage.

“I can assure you that not all [of the other nuns] were against this. They have been criticised, but also understood by some sisters. Just as there are many good priests who do not condemn these kind of choices. I must add, for the record, that it is not the first time that I happen to marry two sisters,” he said.

Complete Article HERE!

Lesbian Nuns and gay Priests: From The Late Late Show to Maynooth

By Páraic Kerrigan

A PhD Candidate in the Department of Media Studies at Maynooth University, suggests the recent Maynooth ‘scandal’ implies that some have not kept pace with changing attitudes to sexuality in wider Irish society.

Maynooth seminary

THE recent Maynooth ‘scandals’, to use the convenient media shorthand, seems to suggest that despite the major progressions surrounding LGBT rights in Ireland some attitudes remain relatively unchanged.

In particular, this remains the case for the more conservative pockets of Irish society and especially the Catholic Church.

Ireland and the Church has been subject to many sex scandals since the early 1990s but it appears that when it comes to members of our clergy and our convents being gay, (or straight for that matter) well, then all hats, or soutanes, are off.

We only have to look to an episode of The Late Late Show from a little over thirty years ago to see the moral panic that can be generated on the acknowledgement that priests and nuns can have a sexuality too.

On the release of their book, Breaking Silence: Lesbian Nuns on Convent Sexuality, Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahan appeared on The Late Late Show to promote its release in Ireland.

Both Manahan and Curb were ex-nuns and lesbians who had risen to notoriety following the book’s release in the US.

Controversially, the publication contained within it interviews with women who entered convent life, only to later discover that they were lesbians.

Prior to its launch in Ireland, Nell McCafferty correctly predicted the book was ‘enough to create furore and a minor furore there will no doubt be’.

Immediately upon its release, a text acknowledging that nuns also have sexual inhibitions, and gay ones at that, was considered so heinous that the Irish customs authorities seized 1,500 copies on its arrival to the island.

It wasn’t just the customs authorities that were so scandalised. Middle Ireland wanted to have their say too.

In fact, they were so infuriated by both Curb and Manahan, that they mobilised themselves into a picket and protested outside of the Buswells Hotel on Molesworth Street, where the pair had been staying.

When The Late Late Show announced in the RTÉ Guide that same week that the ex-nuns would be making an appearance on that Saturday’s edition of the show, the telephone switchboards at RTÉ lit up with protest calls.

On the night of the broadcast itself, the shocked and appalled members of conservative Catholic Ireland held a vigil outside of the Montrose studios, where they erected a statue of the Virgin Mary, while being led by a priest through decades of the rosary as he was amplified from an ice-cream van on site.

Despite the furore caused during the week, the interview with the nuns ended up being not all that scandalous.

Despite getting one of the highest audience figures for any Irish TV show during the 1980s, the interview was fairly tame by Late Late standards.

Even Sr. Maura, an Irish nun from the Daughters of Sion who was on the panel that night, made the rather progressive comment reminding the Irish audience that the clergy don’t ‘leave their sexuality at the door’ when they enter religious life.

 

“Strange goings on” and “a quarrelsome” atmosphere led to Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s decision.

Perhaps it was this attitude that may have benefitted Archbishop Martin in his recent press statements on ‘the strange goings-ons’ at Maynooth.

Despite major changes to public attitudes since 1985 in wider Irish society, however, homosexuality is still clearly viewed as a problem by the church.

Looking at Late Late incident and the Maynooth story in tandem highlights that the church’s attitude to homosexuality has not changed but at least Ireland’s Catholic elite have not yet descended on St. Patrick’s seminary at Maynooth with an ice-cream van and a statue of the Blessed Virgin.

Complete Article HERE!

The nun who became a sex therapist

Dr Fran Fisher’s latest book blows the lid off the repressed sexuality of convent life. And it’s a subject the former nun knows first hand

By Joanna Moorhead

From nun to sex therapist isn’t an obvious career path but, says the former Sister Jane Frances de Chantal, “when you’ve been starved for a while, you certainly appreciate the feast at the end of it”.

In the Name of God, Why?: Ex-Catholic Nuns Speak Out about Sexual Repression, Abuse & Ultimate Liberation  by Dr. Fran Fisher

Today, Sister Jane is Dr Fran Fisher, a California “sexologist” in US-speak. But she was born and raised in Yorkshire and entered a Franciscan convent in Derbyshire aged 18. She left two years later, met and married an academic, and moved to the US. It wasn’t until she was in her 40s, she says, that she began to understand how much her Catholic upbringing, and her experience of being a nun, had damaged her sexual instincts.

With her children growing up, she saw a course in sex therapy advertised and her interest was immediately piqued. “I enrolled, and what happened next blew my head off. One day the tutor said we were going to discuss our masturbation history and I thought, can I really do this? Somewhere inside I was still a nun even after all these years … I was still sexually naive. I realised that the legacy of my time in the convent was the cause of most of the problems in my marriage. It had been drummed into me as a novice that I didn’t really have ownership over anything, even my own body.”

Fisher decided to combine her new professional direction, running workshops and counselling, with her own past, and to find out whether other former nuns had had similar experiences: the result is a book in which she interviews 28 women who, like her, took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience only to later leave orders. She talked to them about their sexuality before, during and after their time in the convent and discovered many similarities. “Most of the women I interviewed had been raised in strict Catholic families. Many had an alcoholic father. Quite a few had a history of physical and/or sexual abuse. A lot of them described the convent as a safe place to go.”

Fisher, who is now in her early 60s, realised that some of the traits of her own childhood were typical – in particular the fact that both her Irish Catholic parents had wholly negative attitudes towards sex. Her father, she says, almost always described women in pejorative terms; her mother, meanwhile, thought sex was “dangerous, dirty, vile, nasty and filthy”. When Fisher, then aged 14, feared she was pregnant – after an episode of petting that didn’t involve intercourse – her mother fuelled her fears, leaving her with a sense of “never wanting to have anything to do with a man again”.

The convent had the allure of a place where women were pure and mysterious and – most importantly – safe. But once inside its walls, her sexuality began to surface. Fisher became increasingly unhappy, lost a lot of weight, and eventually left the convent one Saturday morning while all the other sisters were at mass. She was, she says, still as naive about sex as she was when she arrived. But that wasn’t the case with all the women she interviewed. “Those who spent decades in a convent had usually experienced a sexual awakening. Some had relationships with other nuns, some with priests, some with laypeople.”

Some of them, too, talked to Fisher about how they were aware of sexual abuse that was going on in the Catholic church – but most, she says, were unable or unwilling to do anything about it. “Very few nuns were whistle-blowers,” she says. “When you’re a nun, you give away your ability to judge a situation.” Obedience meant not taking the lead and not questioning those who were obviously in positions of authority – such as male priests.

Some of the women in the book describe exploitative and unequal sexual relationships with priests – relationships they later questioned but which, at the time, they accepted as “necessary” for the men. As for having a healthy, “normal” sexual relationship, some of the women Fisher interviewed were middle-aged before this happened for the first time. “One woman described having intercourse for the first time aged 52. Another told me that when she first got a boyfriend, aged 50, she had sex every night for the first two or three months. Her partner thought he was going out with an Amazonian – but she said to him: “I’ve waited half a century for this, just lie back and shut up!'”

Fisher, like some of those she interviewed, did eventually experience a happy and more typical sex life. But she is fiercely critical of the Catholic system that allows naive young women (these days, more usually they are from Africa or Asia rather than Europe or North America) to uproot themselves from their families and enter a convent.

“The practice of taking young women (or men) from a childhood of indoctrination and expecting them to make a lifelong commitment to celibacy in their early 20s is clearly wrong,” she says. “And it’s still going on. Not long ago, I saw some young nuns being interviewed on TV. I saw their faces, and I thought: it’s still happening. There are still young women in some parts of the world for whom a convent offers a sanctuary from difficult questions about sex, an education, opportunities. But it’s running away from life, and there’s a huge toll in terms of individual fallout down the line. The church shouldn’t allow it to happen.”

Complete Article HERE!