Giving Stuff Away Before Entering

[gloriana35]

As one who was forced out against my will - Don't! I already had university degrees, so I didn't have to pay a dowry, but the community gave me nothing except a small amount for a fare when they dismissed me. I'm ill just thinking of my desperation. My parents were living, so at least I had somewhere to go, but it was terrible.

If you have any money saved, don't even think of giving it to the poor. Have anything of value kept by someone you know (family or friends, not the community.) 

I'd be cautious about disposing of journals and the like. I'm sure someone you trust can keep them for you, without snooping. The day may come when they are of value to you.

 

[Nunsuch]

I had no idea that anyone still did the "secretly and suddenly" thing anymore. Most communities don't--of course, most communities also have long and rigorous discernment and application processes, too, usually lasting at least months.  

In most communities I know, many "formers" remain in close and happy contact with the members (if they choose). Many jubilee classes also invite "formers" back to celebrations, not as jubilarians, but as friends and honored guests. Some become Associates.

The practices described here (both for admission and departure) seem both antiquated and, frankly, unhealthy.

[SicutColumba]

3 hours ago, gloriana35 said:

As one who was forced out against my will - Don't! I already had university degrees, so I didn't have to pay a dowry, but the community gave me nothing except a small amount for a fare when they dismissed me. I'm ill just thinking of my desperation. My parents were living, so at least I had somewhere to go, but it was terrible.

If you have any money saved, don't even think of giving it to the poor. Have anything of value kept by someone you know (family or friends, not the community.) 

I'd be cautious about disposing of journals and the like. I'm sure someone you trust can keep them for you, without snooping. The day may come when they are of value to you.

 

Maybe I should have been a bit more clear, sorry. Being a modern 21st-century girl I have a lot of superfluous stuff and going to the convent I won’t need most of it even if I end up leaving. But I do want to be prepared if I do leave. As for my finances it’s fairly straightforward and I would like my parents simply to keep any money I would have left if/when I make perpetual vows and do with it what they want. The goal is that I would have savings and an easy way to get back on my feet if I ended up leaving. However my parents would like to draw up some kind of agreement because although I’m sure they will respect my wishes in this regard we don’t really know what could happen to them or to me between now and then. 

13 minutes ago, Nunsuch said:

I had no idea that anyone still did the "secretly and suddenly" thing anymore. Most communities don't--of course, most communities also have long and rigorous discernment and application processes, too, usually lasting at least months.  

In most communities I know, many "formers" remain in close and happy contact with the members (if they choose). Many jubilee classes also invite "formers" back to celebrations, not as jubilarians, but as friends and honored guests. Some become Associates.

The practices described here (both for admission and departure) seem both antiquated and, frankly, unhealthy.

I don’t understand at all the practice of regarding former members of a community as some kind of shameful secret. If she had a good experience in formation but decided it wasn’t for her it’s not some kind of dreadful embarrassment that she leaves. I know a woman who was once a member of a local convent, ending up leaving, married, and is now a very generous benefactor to the same nuns. 

Maybe a community who sends members away secretly is aware of its perhaps-hurtful practices or at least is aware that something is wrong chez elles and doesn’t want it to get out. In any case it seems very harmful to young, maybe vulnerable women. 

[gloriana35]

My experience was forty years ago - I'm not suggesting it is common today (I have no idea.) I knew others (from different communities) which had the same thing happen - in fact, the other members of the community (even if they were novices in one's class, for example - not only professed Sisters who'd have voted against someone) knew before one knew one's self. The trick in my case was pretending to send me to another location to be a music teacher (I had an MA in the subject), then sending me a letter.

One of my good friends (in another community) just had her superior call her aside one day, and tell her that her aunt was on her way to the convent. Her understandable, immediate response was to ask if one of her parents had died. No - it was the way of telling her they were sending her away. I knew someone else, again in another community, who found a note on her pillow.

Before it ever happened to me (I was what would have been considered a late vocation in the 1970s), I still remember being sickened by two sisters, then in their thirties, laughing over what happened when they were senior novices. One other novice was not going to be permitted to make vows, but everyone knew it except herself. The others made up little jokes to hide such things as 'vows tests' from her - such as saying 'what time is the banana boat coming in?' Since, in my day, those in formation might be treated as if they were children, and were very isolated, I suppose I could make an allowance that young women could act like bratty children who 'know a secret' - but for women in their thirties to still think this was funny is sick.

Edited December 2, 2020 by gloriana35
clarification

[cruciatacara]

This abrupt dismissal with no warning thing happened to a friend of mine in 2009 (only 11 years ago). Her memories of that convent are naturally not very positive. When I found out what had happened to her I was disgusted and angry, but she hadn't told me until months later. I think she felt ashamed, another thing that happens to those who are asked to leave a convent, so she didn't want to talk about it for a long time. Unfortunately that made it hard for friends to help her since we didn't know anything about it at the time, and we hadn't had much contact with her during her time in the convent either since she was only allowed to write a letter to her family once a month.

Her story as she told it to me is that she had been in a Carmelite monastery in the UK for five months and was hoping to become a Novice. Her postulancy had been going well, she thought, but late one afternoon the Prioress called her to the office with her Novice Mistress and she was told that she was going to be leaving the next day and that a taxi would pick her up at the convent gates at 9am. She said she didn't  really understand what the Prioress was saying or why she had suddenly made this decision as there had been no communication or warnings that everything wasn't just fine. She said she kind of went into a state of shock but remembers vaguely asking what she had done wrong and the Prioress simply saying, 'I have nothing to teach you.'

My friend said she didn't understand what was being said to her but remembers being on her knees (as they all did in the presence of the Prioress at this convent), begging both of them to be allowed to correct whatever she had done wrong and begging them to allow her to stay a little longer, but they refused to discuss it. Instead, she was coldly told that she was to go her cell immediately and stay there until the next morning. Her Novice Mistress would bring her something to eat for supper and she was to pack up what she had brought with her, but she wasn't to interact with any of the other sisters or attend choir. When she asked what to do about daily Mass the next morning she was told she was to attend in the public chapel where the other sisters couldn't see her. She never got to see any of them again or to say goodbye. She simply ceased to exist for the other sisters - that must have been hard on them too.

She was still in a state of shock, she said,  when the taxi arrived after morning Mass to take her to the airport. She wandered the airport for hours dragging her suitcase behind her, trying all the airlines she knew to find a flight either to the USA or Australia (where she had family) because she didn't know what to do, but it was a Tuesday and flights out of that airport were limited with most of the airline counters closed. Finally one of the British Airways employees took pity on her and told her that on Tuesdays most international flights left from Heathrow so she would have to either take a train or bus south (a long journey), or she might be able to find a flight to Australia on one of the Middle Eastern airlines via Dubai. but they were in a different part of the airport. When she said she would prefer this to trying to get to Heathrow, he took her around personally to a few different counters until she found a flight to Australia leaving that afternoon. He showed her more kindness than the Prioress or Novice Mistress had! Maybe God sent her an angel in disguise? She told me if he hadn't helped her, she probably would have ended up sitting on her suitcase and just crying, not knowing what to do. This isn't like her, as she is a very capable and competent person so I can only think that she really was experiencing symptoms of shock.

She paid with what the limited cash she had left and caught the flight. When she got back to Australia her sister was overseas on holiday so she checked into a cheap motel in a slum area since that was all she could afford. She immediately got sick with the flu (probably weakened immune system from the shock plus airline travel germs) and spent the next two weeks in the motel alone being sick. Her sister finally returned and nursed her back to health and sanity and helped her get back on her feet again.

The reason I remember this so vividly is that she decided to write about it on her blog at the time, as sort of a catharsis, and I read it and was appalled. We talked about it after that but I have never forgotten what she went through. I have had some bad experiences of my own with regard to religious communities, but nothing like this. I think women tend to have it rougher than men in that area, but perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe men just don't talk about it as much as women? I don't know.

So this kind of insensitivity and cruelty still happens - it isn't just a pre-Vat II thing - and it's still a devastating shock and loss. I know there are many humane and caring communities that make leaving a much easier process, but there are also still those horrible ones that strip a person of all dignity by their complete lack of kindness or charity, and make them feel ashamed and that it is all their fault and they have failed God in some way.

All I can say is, don't assume that you will never need any of your belongings again. When she got out of the convent, she had nothing and had to start all over again - it was only because she had family and friends that she was able to do this.

@SicutColumba I hope your experience is a positive and love filled one and that you can safely write to your parents years from now and tell them to dispose of everything you left behind, but just in case things don't work out the way you dream, just use common sense.

[Anastasia]

Both two stories above are awful. Looking at this and also knowing other stories, not only in monasteries but also in parishes I have to say they all have one very important component. I call it "the great science". The things are done quietly and never discussed. Those who do that have the same mentality, no matter where they are. 

"The great silence" stunned me most when the Royal Commission was investigating a very notorious case of a serial pedophile (and a psychopath I am sure) priest. People in the parish (many older people knew that priest personally) were visible down but they were silent. The clergy did not say anything to the congregation although some of them were on the TV asked by a court. It was a very huge shock to me but even more shocking to me was the silence of the clergy and laity. To me it was unthinkable - no singe word as nothing was happening. I though and still think the Bishop and other clergy had to explain things to people and to support them and vice versa.

So, to my mind, "the great silence" is the great evil. It takes various shapes like covering the abuse, sudden and quiet "shipping back" from the monastery, laity "never asking about about anything", clergy never answering and so on. It is one thing.

... And that one thing has nothing to do with the faith (it is contrary to Christ and the faith) and everything - with human psychology. It just that in the Church it looks particularly revolting.

[by "revolting" I mean the clear cases of abuse, not silence out of fear etc I witnessed in the parish]

Edited December 3, 2020 by Anastasia

[SicutColumba]

These are some of the worst stories I've heard on this subject. I mean, I know stuff like this happens but like Anastasia says it is the worst of all that it's done by those  who we think are the closest to Christ. We know it happens in many places but it's the most shameful and infuriating when it takes place in the Church. 

Is there a higher instance of situations like this in the Church because abusive people are drawn to the religious life because of the opportunities for control over vulnerable people? I just don't really understand why someone would bother entering a monastery or the priesthood and then waste all the opportunities for grace and make a mockery of their vocation by such sin. I know that immature and narcissistic people enter religious life and I guess some of them never change, to the detriment of their souls and of the mental/physical/spiritual wellbeing of those in their care. 

[Anastasia]

3 hours ago, SicutColumba said:

Is there a higher instance of situations like this in the Church because abusive people are drawn to the religious life because of the opportunities for control over vulnerable people? I just don't really understand why someone would bother entering a monastery or the priesthood and then waste all the opportunities for grace and make a mockery of their vocation by such sin.

You asked huge questions. I think some rare people consciously go into the workplaces where they can abuse, like to a school, medical professions and various Churches. But the rest do not think this way. I think they become priests and religious because some aspects in the Church’s system matches the system they used to in their families. It is all about a family.

Take a good family. A healthy Church must be like a good family. A father and a mother who are “one flesh” and love each other, children are loved unconditionally and they respect their parents and so on; there is no emotional enmeshment, no covert incest, no favouritism, no manipulation, blackmailing, no silent treatment and so on. Most importantly, the members of the family relate to each other as to persons and not the tools for self-gratification. So, the children go into the world and treat others normally, according to the norm they themselves learnt.

And then take a narcissistic family, with a narcissist mother. A father is oppressed and barely present; he and the children are treated as mere tools for mother’s self-gratification. They use to be abused, lied to, they never speak up, never violate a carefully maintained facade of “a good family” no matter how abused some of them are. Because they have to satisfy their mother, they have no idea what they want in a life and who they are, they strive to become “successful” or “impressive”, to impress their mother. Imagine then that a family is Catholic and one of boys decided to become a priest, partially because he believes in God but mostly because if he does he will win the favour of his mother, he will become “special”. Even if a boy is not a narcissist, he still has an extremely unhealthy psyche and a way of relating to others.

He enters a seminary and finds himself in a completely protected environment. He becomes a priest and feels that he is very special now b.o. an ontological change which for ever separates him from other people. He has no wife who could challenge him and teach him humility via a very close attachment which he would be forced to sustain. The old parishioners look up to a newly ordained priest. He cannot help it but he feels very special and the narcissistic family background, his own ruined psyche and almost adoration of the parishioners are extremely bad combination.

I do not know if I managed to show how a position of a priest seems to be well cut for a narcissistic person or a person brought up in a narcissistic family. A priest has a natural special status, he is in many respects securely separated from the laity so his problems with interpersonal relationships is securely covered, he has no very close attachments which would make him address his psychological problems. If all such a priest knows is a narcissistic family system he will begin acting according to that system. In fact, he is the system, the system is engraved into his person. And that priest can have the best possible intentions.

That was my attempt to answer

3 hours ago, SicutColumba said:

I just don't really understand why someone would bother entering a monastery or the priesthood and then waste all the opportunities for grace and make a mockery of their vocation by such sin.

I observed in people including myself the most incredible blindness to own sins. Some of those people I suspect are unaware of what they are doing. In my experience, only total surrender to Christ can begin heal a corrupted human psyche and the system.

The worst in this is:

The abuse in the family of origin ruins children for a life because it is so contrary to what a family is supposed be.
The abuse in the Church ruins it’s members for a life because it is so contrary to what the Church is supposed be. The presence of Christ in the Church makes the abuse even more potent.
In both cases the abuse could not be possible without an enormous deposit of an automatic trust. A child loves and trust his mother, it is a norm. A believer loves and trusts his Church, it is a norm. The devil uses human being to mock the best things.

PS The evil in the Church happens thanks to silence, just like in a narcissistic family. 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Anastasia

[gloriana35]

In specific relation to decent, dedicated people who are rejected (I won't get into the criminals who aren't, since I worked in a position where I had access to highly confidential information), one of the hardest parts is no sympathy. One cannot even confide in others - at best, they think one is relieved - or shrug it off with 'it wasn't God's will.' I'd done nothing immoral! My own parents kept saying, "There must be something you're not telling us!" (Today, I suppose they'd assume I was a paedophile... I've had people say 'but they don't even throw out criminals.') 

Some of those who were forced out of communities are superb individuals - none of them are in any way wicked. It boils down to 'you were not what the community wanted.'  (Incidentally - I did consider entering religious life again, and actually was accepted, but years had past, church situations had changed, and I realised I did not want to live in community again. I'm a solitary, in private vows, for many years. It was not that I was incapable of living a vowed life.) I am very fortunate that the Sisters with whom I once lived have no houses anywhere near me, so I never saw a one of them again - nor would I care to do so. When they supposedly transferred me to be a music teacher, two of the Sisters there (one the local superior) treated me with such utter contempt, calling me a liar and more, that I'm glad I was able to shake the dust off my shoes, as it were. None of them were criminals, but they treated others horribly. 

[Feankie]

Okay, please don't beat me up for "drifting" a bit, but you all are making very salient points.  And I see them extrapolated to include those in the highest degrees of the hierarchy of the R.C. Church.  Those in "authority" tend to protect their own by making excuses, turning a blind eye, rationalizing, passing the buck, telling half-truths, refusing all requests for explanation or clarification, skirting the issue, or simply ignoring it all in hope it will go away. Truth and honesty, let alone compassion, seem to be in short supply.

What can you expect when your examplars are those who are in authority!? 

[Lea]

I would not consider myself naive, and as someone interested in both statistics and humans, have done a fair amount of research on the abuse that has taken place within the catholic church and her insitutions. A close friend of mine is a surivor as well, with the legal procedures behind and the canocical still ahead of her.

But as someone discerning religious life [with a community that does not cover up the fact that there are sisters in need of psychological treatment with them as well] I feel actually kind of discouraged by what I'm reading here. 

[Sponsa-Christi]

@Lea It's normal to feel discouraged, because this is discouraging stuff!

But even while no community is perfect, there are healthy groups out there. So keep discerning, but just do so with your eyes open. (Just like how the divorce rate doesn't mean an individual should give up on marriage...but it is important to choose your future spouse carefully.)

[rosamundi]

17 hours ago, cruciatacara said:

This abrupt dismissal with no warning thing happened to a friend of mine in 2009 (only 11 years ago).

cruciatacara, do you have permission to post this story here? Because I've been a member of these boards for many years and I believe I know the person you're talking about through her membership here.

[cruciatacara]

33 minutes ago, rosamundi said:

cruciatacara, do you have permission to post this story here? Because I've been a member of these boards for many years and I believe I know the person you're talking about through her membership here.

So you know her, so what? I didn't use any identifying names of the person or the community or the actual location. Are you planning on outing her? Those who actually know her wouldn't ask this question.

And since I do know her personally I feel quite comfortable with what I have posted. If you disagree and know her personally too, then ask her yourself. She would laugh. She posted it all to her blog back in the day and I can assure you she actually named names back then. I was being discreet and just trying to address the OP's original question by showing how things can go terribly wrong even when we least expect it.

I'm not really sure the purpose of your comment?

[Bonkira]

One of the challenges the church has not risen to well is whole person formation, which is not about articles of faith or orthodoxy/orthography, but about mental health, interpersonal relationships, boundaries, human sexuality (not TOTB but really frank discussions about what healthy sexuality is...especially important for people living a vow of celibacy/chastity, as we do not stop having sexuality when we make a promise), and deep self-exploration with the help of another person who has the licenses and tools to dig deep in a professional capacity.

A lot of this is treated in a really cursory manner or left untreated totally (priestly formation around sexuality and the reality and challenges of celibacy is almost nonexistent), and not preparing an individual with tools to live is creating an environment where unhealthy and harmful actions and dynamics can take root. Convents/monasteries, communities/orders, and clergy are all microsystems of life with structure in place that is ripe for unhealthy dynamics when the above areas aren't deeply addressed and when there isn't oversight. The church really needs to reckon with this if harm is going to be addressed, challenged, and eradicated, but it is not there yet.