God's Callgirl

by Carla Van Raay

  We could hardly believe what we were hearing, or what came out of her mouth next.

  ‘Margaret Ellen Winchester,’ read Mother Clare, ‘formerly known as Superior General of the Order of the Faithful Companions of Jesus from 1948 to 1965, has been declared to have been of unsound mind during the last three years of her life. In view of her insanity, it is not possible to attribute to her any form of malicious wrongdoing.’

  We drew in a collective deep breath. Had we heard right? Insane! Our General, mentally ill to the degree of insanity, therefore not held responsible for her actions? I smiled into my lap, ruefully gratified at hearing these words spoken in public in our private domain. Would this have to formally appear in the newspapers? But my mind was working overtime. The events pertaining to the reign and deposition of Madame Winchester were to be kept secret in archives in the Bishop of London’s residence. I suspect that Mother Clare made a mistake in reading that announcement to her community. As far as I can make out, it was not repeated in any other convent. And the order was never sued.

  Claiming insanity to avoid litigation was one thing, but to deny that injustices had been committed was quite another. The statement was an admission of guilt, but, because of her madness, the General was deemed innocent and irreproachable! There was no hint of apology, reparation or offer of counselling for the poor nuns who had suffered at her crazy hands. This news produced a welter of emotions in me—triumph, anger, betrayal, and sneering disdain.

  The second announcement came as a clap of thunder.

  Mother Clare held in her hand fateful discussion papers from the bishop of the district, which he had received from his superiors in Melbourne, who in turn had received them from Rome. They were belated papers based on the Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life (Perfectae Caritatis), proclaimed in 1965.

  There had recently been a summit in Broadstairs. The FCJ order, which had been so courageous at the beginning of renewal, had by then largely given up in the face of resistance from its ordinary nuns. After all, nuns in FCJ convents around the world had been taught to keep silence, not to talk. After lengthy deliberations, the Chapter of Superiors from around the world came to a decision: namely, to be as conservative as possible about Vatican II’s suggestions pertaining to nuns; which, in practice, meant doing almost nothing. The Church had assumed its nuns had the maturity to instigate and implement sensible changes to make them more relevant in the world, as well as more human, but that wasn’t the case.

  In faraway Australia, we hadn’t even been aware of mooted changes. The local Catholic hierarchy, responsible for disseminating news, had been far from enthusiastic and had kept us in the dark. But now the superiors were obliged to tell their communities that changes had to be made and that in each convent the whole community was to suggest how it would introduce those changes.

  ‘We have been asked to do some serious thinking and debating,’ said Mother Clare, in a barely controlled tone. ‘In a spirit of renewal, we will be asking ourselves what is the purpose of our religious life. We will also re-evaluate all three of our vows, especially the vow of obedience.’ She allowed the words to sink in. ‘Everyone will participate. Everyone will have an equal voice.’

  This was a monumental change! But there was more to come. Mother Clare seemed bent on destroying the last vestige of normality that day.

  She went on: ‘As a religious order, we FCJs have resisted changes brought in by Vatican II in the past. This is to end. Changes will now not only be considered but implemented, or we will be disbanded or amalgamated with another order.’

  Disbanded! Amalgamated with another order! The twelve nuns around the table shuddered and swayed. Most of them, including several in the hierarchy, had been convinced that the whispered changes were concessions to human weakness and it was up to them to preserve their true religious ideals and customs. For them, ignorance of the world was considered wisdom. The only news of the wider world that filtered through to us was if the schoolchildren happened to mention something, or it was universally important enough to be announced formally in the common room. I remember well the day John F Kennedy was assassinated; I was still at Stella Maris and the announcement was made to anyone who happened to be in the common room at the time. The custom of waiting for the reading was dispensed with so that we could immediately pray for the dead President’s soul. Of course, Kennedy was a Catholic.

  Only a month before Mother Clare’s shocking announcements, Sister Patricia, the domineering middleaged nun in charge of the primary school, told us about a child who had brought a meat sandwich to school on a Friday. ‘I told him it was a mortal sin to eat meat on Fridays,’ she said—no longer true, according to Vatican II—‘and he began to tremble, speechless with fear, because he had already taken a bite.’ She thought this was terribly funny.

  One of the biggest sacrifices we had made in the past was to avoid making judgments, or even hold opinions—the major side-effect of childlike obedience. I had taken to this with the instinct of a martyr. Whatever was good enough for the Jesuits was good enough for us, we’d been told. I forgot to notice that the Jesuits were encouraged to think very sharply indeed, as well as to obey.

  ‘Do not judge’ caused me to ignore the fact that many of the older nuns did not always keep to the rules they imposed on the younger ones. They huddled in door recesses, animatedly breaking the rule of silence when they thought no one was watching. They cultivated those ‘particular friendships’ called the bane of religious life in our rule book. In spite of the agony I had gone through trying to be faithful to this rule, I still didn’t judge them. They read magazines and books that we had no access to. They drank tea when they pleased and helped themselves to things in the kitchen, ignoring the lay sister there, whose job it was to not judge anything.

  When the rule of silence was finally relaxed to a degree, and I felt free to push it a degree or two further, Sister Antoinette and I would often laugh together about these things.

  Sister Antoinette was a consolation to my spirits, every bit as effective as the Rawleigh’s ointment she gave to the beggars who came to the back door complaining of piles. She was disturbed when told she could no longer assist beggars:‘We’re a teaching order, not a charitable institution, Sister. And these beggars could be dangerous to the boarders and students!’

  Sister Antoinette was nobody’s fool. She realised that the presence of beggars at the back door threatened to tarnish the convent’s precious image. But the beggars were well known to her, they had been coming for many years, some after long journeys around the country. In return for food, clothing and remedies, they would shake out heavy mats she couldn’t manage by herself and do chores like cleaning the chimneys. She continued to help them surreptitiously, telling them to hurry off afterwards.

  ‘BLIND OBEDIENCE’, WHERE a sister took no responsibility for her own actions in her efforts to do the will of God by simply following commands, was no longer acceptable to the spirit of reform. ‘I’m only doing my job’ could no longer be considered an excuse for stupid or immoral behaviour. For submissive nuns like me, this was a challenge to progress from childhood into adolescence, a painful growing-up. For others, the transition would not be possible. They would be children or nothing. Their struggle was a pitiful one, but could be absorbed by a convent that had housed them for so long. It was the ‘adolescents’—noisy, vocal and rebellious—who proved to be the headaches.

  And so began the time of great inroads into conservative thinking and the status quo. As I read the notes we were given to study, on pink, green and blue paper—one colour for each vow—an ugly feeling of having been severely duped came over me. But who had decided to give up responsibility for thinking for herself? Only me, with extreme relief and alacrity!

  AFTER THAT MEMORABLE day of introduction to the changes, the newspaper was placed daily on the common-room table and a TV was installed in the little room next door. At the same time, we were told that even though we were now obli
ged to have such things in the house, it was better not to touch either.

  Of course I read the newspaper, in full view of the others, their silent disapproval sweeping over me as they passed. I was more aware of their reaction than of the words I was reading, and when the news did penetrate I had to pretend not to be deeply shocked by the things that were happening to other people all over the world.

  And I watched TV. At first I chose fairly innocuous programs, such as religious services performed by other denominations on Sundays. They seemed harmless enough. In spite of the much-vaunted post-Vatican ecumenicism (of Christians of all denominations coming together), I overheard nuns judging the program to be subversive to our Catholic faith. The next week, thanks to the moderating influence of one of the older nuns, who pointed out that it was a good thing to try to understand our Protestant brothers and sisters and discover what we had in common—and also, perhaps, to prevent the total isolation of their adventurous sister—this Sunday program was watched by several of the nuns over several weeks. I felt vindicated to a degree.

  Movies were different. Even Anna drew the line there. I could count on her to talk to me, to help me shorten the hems of my skirts, even redesign the whole habit, but she wouldn’t watch midnight horror movies with me. So I watched them by myself. My very first TV movie was a psycho-thriller about a murder which had been vibrationally recorded in the stone walls of a cellar. As the stones were activated, the murderous events played themselves out again, fatefully, inexorably.

  The lights all went off at 10 pm but I stayed in the little room, mesmerised by the story. At way past midnight it was time for me to find my bed. I entered the dark hallway and couldn’t see a thing. The floor creaked under my stealthy feet, agonisingly loud. There was no way I was going up the outside stairs at this hour of night. I headed for the main stairs, finding my way by groping along the wall. The stairs also creaked, but if anyone heard, they didn’t come to see who was causing the noise. I reached the landing and was now sure of my way to the dorm. There was so much adrenaline in my veins from the excitement of the movie and the fearsome trip to bed that I couldn’t sleep for hours. The adventure was worth it, I told myself. The next day I had a heavy head from lack of sleep, but felt a silly kind of superiority. Nobody asked me if I had enjoyed the movie, so I was alone in my supposed victory. It would have been a greater victory if I’d watched something useful, like current affairs programs and local and world news!

  THE SKIRTS OF our habits were so full that walking in them without the material twisting around our cottonstockinged legs was a skill, one that was mastered better by some than others. I had perfected it to such a degree that it seemed I had wheels under my skirts instead of legs.

  One morning after prayers in the chapel I passed the vestibule where our superior was saying goodbye to the priest who had just said Mass for us. I looked neither to the left nor right but noticed that their conversation stopped abruptly as I passed by. Then the astonished priest’s remark filled the vestibule: ‘Is that human?’

  Shocking words. I couldn’t just take them as a compliment for my skill in the art of gliding.

  Sometimes I would slow down, when the line of a poem I had heard as a schoolgirl came to mind: ‘the incomparable pomp of ease’. I would take a breath, let the phrase sink in and recapture a sense of being at ease. Then I would practise walking more leisurely, letting my hips move me a little, feeling like a queen.

  The new regulation stated that if at least two nuns agreed upon a design, the new habit could be worn by its innovators. Anna and I took time off together to sew newlook habits. She was better at sewing than I was; she knew how to make things fit. So I followed her directions and was very grateful for her cooperation, since she was risking the judgment of some of the nuns who saw what we were doing as a conspiracy. A conspiracy aimed against them.

  Anna thought that it would be wise to sketch out a design and then get others’ opinions. She drew a slimmerlooking skirt, the hem neither short nor long but hovering undecidedly midway, topped by an untailored jacket which just touched the skirt at the waist. Instead of the bonnet we chose a veil over a stiff white band. This was already regulation wear but no one had adopted it as yet.

  There was absolutely no interest in our new design and no suggestions for improvements were forthcoming, so we went ahead and made them for ourselves in the off-white, summer outfit material.

  I wore my new habit for the first time to my youngest sister’s wedding. By then, I had grown my hair just long enough to show a ragged fringe. It felt strange, after all those years of having my head shaved every week, to let my hair grow again. Would it still be blonde? To encourage my scalp into action I secretly sunned it on the tiny balcony at the end of our dormitory, one storey up and facing the convent’s driveway. I had to crouch low so as not to be seen by anyone (the balcony was in sight of the road and rather low) and choose a time when no one was in the dorm. Hot, prickly sweat soon made me retreat from the sun’s glare, only slightly dulling the wickedly sensual feeling of fresh air on my scalp.

  I felt extremely vulnerable at my sister’s wedding without my armour of voluminous folds of cloth.

  Anna and I also wore our new design to a funeral in the chapel. It was attended by several Jesuit priests, who were there to show their solidarity with the FCJs, forged from a long association. For many decades they had enjoyed a mutual admiration society. It didn’t do any good trying to hide us near the back; it was there that we were most easily spotted by those in the very back pew and others who had standing room only.

  ‘Where do they come from?’ was the ungracious question whispered to our superior by a Jesuit. I glanced furtively at the questioner and caught the response of our chagrined superior.

  ‘Those are the new habits,’ she whispered, turning away from us as she spoke, indicating her helplessness at having to witness and accept such absurdities, and hoping that the priest with the querulous voice would understand that it wasn’t her idea.

  The new habit went no further than Anna and me. Nobody attempted to emulate our bravery, called brazenness by some. A ‘proper’ design for a new habit was carefully researched by two nuns at Genazzano and they eventually came up with a model that represented a more gradual change; one which was superseded every two years or so, as courage and acceptance of smartness grew. I was long gone by then.

  THE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT renewal were lively. I felt like a visionary; my imagination was fired: I could easily see how we could move into the future without unnecessary shackles. But I was also an idealist, approaching topics and ideas without considering others’ feelings, without acknowledging or respecting that my sisters were not all like me and needed much more time to change.

  Their resistance to my forwardness was both outspoken and subtle. As talking became easier, so did politicking—people bunching up into groups. Isolating someone is easy in a community: all you do is stop talking to her. You can make it hard when she wants to talk to you, by being in a hurry. You can make plans that she won’t know about by announcing them when she isn’t there, and so on. Gradually, I was being ostracised.

  I complained to my sisters at a meeting that they weren’t accepting me. The superior headed off the psychological equivalent of a lynch party. The storm of angry comments only confirmed my belief.

  I received letters from various superiors who had known me in the past. ‘Be patient and kind, Sister,’ was the tone of every one of them. But my heart hardened. I replied in plain language: ‘No one wants to listen to me; and all you want is to sweet-talk me into being a “good girl”, to be quiet and stop being a nuisance.’ It did not go down very well at all. This was not the FCJ spirit I had been brought up in.

  I lived with a bunch of people who were emotionally more stable than I was, but not necessarily more mature. They were able to sacrifice themselves for the common good, weathering the storms while they resented those who rocked their boat.

  A NEW CONCESSION allowed nuns to c
hoose their own priest as confessor and mentor, which meant they were no longer reliant on the likes of the local parish priest for confession and guidance and also less dependent on their Mother Superior.

  Father Doherty, who had led our seven-day retreat that year, became my mentor. I liked him because of his admiration for Teilhard de Chardin, the ex-communicated heretic with a scientific and lyrical passion for God. Father Doherty was stationed in Melbourne, so our communication was by correspondence. I poured out my frustrations to him and he replied with soothing letters, offering understanding and dispassionate good advice.

  ‘I trust that you will not forget,’ he wrote, ‘that it was the patience of men like Congar, de Lubac and Karl Rahner that eventually made possible the great work of Vatican II.’ Well, that made me feel so humble and insignificant! I was no great brain compared to these famous characters; he was gently pointing out that I was just a nun (not terribly well informed) and shouldn’t take on too much responsibility for changing anything. ‘Do try to be patient, Sister. Try to see the others’ points of view. The way ahead is a gradual one, which means we all have to move together, in mutual respect and charity.’

  I did try. But I was on fire, and didn’t understand the hesitation of my sisters. ‘Father,’ I replied, ‘my sisters are deliberately obstructing change, and they are doing it to obstruct me!’ He did not reply to that. What can you say to a young nun who is developing the first signs of paranoia?

  I was not the only headache in the order. If I wanted to go too fast, some did not want to move at all. The suffering of some of the older, very faithful sisters was intense. These nuns inwardly endured the crumbling of the whole premise of their holiness. The changes ‘proved’ that the foundation of the rules had been shaky all along—like the church’s doctrine of limbo, for instance. They had given themselves up to what they thought was righteousness and were now faced with having been wrong. Had they been living a life of foolishness instead of ultimate perfection?