Last week an obscure 2006 book on sexual ethics by a nun, a retired Yale Divinity School theologian, rocketed to number 13 on Amazon’s bestseller list
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IDK about that... nearly everyone I know who went to a Catholic school hates and/or is terrified of them. Just as nasty and abusive as the rest of the church, by and large.
Where I live, since Nuns are not the ones to run schools (or "schools" for aboriginal people...) they are pretty okay. They mostly teach music, foreign languages, help charities and do stuff like write books about sex. I've heard horror storries from the past (and oh so many of them), but today I only hear good things about nuns from people (those I've known where really sweet)
Our nuns were great at slapping our hands with a ruler, but they were also the first to stick up for any of us; we were like their kids and they treated us as such. Nuns over priests/bishops any day.
A nun -- well, more likely a sister -- not only accepted my interest in science fiction and fantasy, she encouraged me in writing it. I wouldn't be anywhere near as happy or prolific an author if not for Sr Marie-Blanchette.
Compare to my friend's Generic Christian High School where they called her mom over her reading Magic Knight Rayearth because it had 'magic' in the title.
I do dislike the way that these nuns are being used to try and sweeping pretend Catholic nuns are completely not involved in the various fuckeries of the church at all.
A friend of mine has always had a back up plan to be a nun.
It always really gets me this sort of dialectical thing with Christianity (in particular, but all religions) that it is at once a force for progressive ideology/change and yet also at the same time is the metaphorical foot that steps on that shit.
I went to a Catholic school for a time, and loved the handful of nuns I met there. Awesome people. That said, it probably helped that something like less than half of the student body was actually Catholic... any new staff member expecting a crop of uber-Catholic kids would have been totally disappointed, and left if they couldn't adapt.
It used to be that the local bishop, upon hearing one of the Catholic schools in his parish needed more teachers, would tap whatever nuns were available for this whether they had teaching credentials or not, whether they had joined a cloistered, contemplative order or a more outgoing, service-oriented order, etc. These days, they aren't as free to do that, and even Catholic schools require a teaching certificate.
So imagine that you want to lock yourself away from the world and just spend your time in prayer, meditation and physical work when suddenly you are responsible for 25 6-year olds every day. You might be a bit testy and unsuited to that life.
I went to a school with a large body of teaching nuns. Some were awesome, like the 80-something year old Sister Mary who took sex-ed and would actually answer any question or discuss any issue, privately or publicly. We also had Sister Kris who played in a band and liked to sky dive, and who was a boss Modern History teacher. Others were crazy and definitely out of their time and universally despised. But never abusive - I was of the belief that in most Western countries (Ireland, I'm looking at your and your Magdalene laundries), the idea of nuns as hateful abusive and cruel was largely outdated. Basically, I think we had a spread of good and dud nuns-as-teachers, like most schools.
IDK about that... nearly everyone I know who went to a Catholic school hates and/or is terrified of them. Just as nasty and abusive as the rest of the church, by and large.
Admittedly, these nuns seem okay though. :)
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Compare to my friend's Generic Christian High School where they called her mom over her reading Magic Knight Rayearth because it had 'magic' in the title.
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It always really gets me this sort of dialectical thing with Christianity (in particular, but all religions) that it is at once a force for progressive ideology/change and yet also at the same time is the metaphorical foot that steps on that shit.
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So imagine that you want to lock yourself away from the world and just spend your time in prayer, meditation and physical work when suddenly you are responsible for 25 6-year olds every day. You might be a bit testy and unsuited to that life.
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Others were crazy and definitely out of their time and universally despised. But never abusive - I was of the belief that in most Western countries (Ireland, I'm looking at your and your Magdalene laundries), the idea of nuns as hateful abusive and cruel was largely outdated.
Basically, I think we had a spread of good and dud nuns-as-teachers, like most schools.
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