ACP Statement on the role of Nuns
Association of Catholic Priests
The ACP critical of the way Nuns are being portrayed
8 January 2025
For the past two centuries nuns (sisters) educated people in their schools, and cared for people in hospitals, at a time when the state was either unwilling or unable to provide such services.
Yes, they operated industrial schools, orphanages and mother and baby homes and the values under which such institutions operated clearly failed in many circumstances to reflect those of the Gospel. It is important that people who have suffered institutional abuse should be given whatever help is necessary for their possible recovery from the trauma of their experience.
Many people were lifted out of poverty and lived successful lives because of the education provided by the religious women. Many people also lived longer and healthier lives as a result of the care they administered.
Hindsight alters perspective. It is clear that many Religious regret that their orders ever took on the state’s job of running orphanages or got involved in providing services to the single pregnant women whom no one wanted to help and many of whose families saw them as objects of shame and profound embarrassment.
The cultural context of the times is rarely, if ever, mentioned. Society judges the past harshly while media outlets seek to outdo each other in condemnation. Religious sisters are vilified; a harsh hard-faced nun, dressed in traditional habit, has become the standard media image of all nuns. It is false and unjust.
Those who are still alive are mainly elderly women. We know them and the hurt they experience by this portrayal. The reality is that most have lived quiet, hard-working lives with a minimum of financial reward. In the current atmosphere they are afraid to make their voices heard, knowing the abuse that would be showered on them from many, many quarters.
We, in the Association of Catholic Priests, are now speaking out in protest at the way nuns are being portrayed. We are not suggesting any cover up of abuse, but we look for balance, fairness and perspective in the presentation of the stories.
For media interviews contact:
Roy Donovan 087-2225150; Tim Hazelwood 087-1337164;
Gerry O’Connor 087-2320295; Tony Flannery 087-6814699
For verification: Liamy Mac Nally, ACP Admin Secretary 087-2233220
As one who owes so much to dedicated and saintly religious sisters, and who sees them as a great treasure of Catholic Ireland, even apart from their incredible (and unpaid) work in schools and hospitals, I want to second and support this statement with all my heart.
I have great respect for religious because of their devotion to helping others. But your article dodges the Catholic hierarchies’ and bishops’ and priests’ role at the pinnacle of the Zeitgeist of Catholic shame in the sentence ending in “…many of whose families saw them as objects of shame and profound embarrassment.”
The shame came from your teachings of sin for anything related to sex, and that shame was exported worldwide with the diaspora, I am here to testify. You priests should bear the major portion of the shame and admit that your teachings from the pulpit, direction to the Sisters, and murmured denunciations in the confessional drove the societal shame. So, an honest look by this publication should pitch in and carry that load, not bemoan it and blame ‘society’. You collectively drove all mores and strictures in that society. The mirror is large enough, use it for yourselves.
Henry Cavanagh
Cleveland, Ohio
I would like to add my voice to those who feel the injustice of the current trend to have nuns all stuck into one box and claim them to be cruel and heartless. I was, and still am, disgusted and ashamed that some women, claiming to be living a love centred faith, treated others so cruelly and brutally. I understand how people who suffered so greatly at the hands of such monsters can never forget such treatment, nor do I think they should “get over it”.
However, I am also very grateful for the many religious sisters I have encountered in my life who have demonstrated real selflessness and genuine loving care for others. I especially admire those powerful women who have stood up in the face of injustice and have dedicated their lives to the most vulnerable and voiceless in society. They don’t hit the headlines, they just get on with the work. Thank God for them.
I visited an exhibition “Daring to Hope–Irish Religious Sisters Embracing the Unknown 1923-2023” recently, and it shows the positive side of what “nuns” are about.
Details of the exhibition can be found on (although I believe it may be ending soon):
https://www.amri.ie/irish-religious-sisters-photographic-exhibition/
Thank you for your heartfelt opinion in this regard. However, I wish to point out a few factors that are overlooked here. The cruelty and punitive behaviors of these nuns – as one may put it – must be understood within the context of the culture and the time in the history.
During that era, we had parents who would punish their children by flogging them with a kettle-wire, we had parents who would make their children kneel outside the house for a whole day, we had teachers in the schools who were allowed to use canes to discipline their students, (just to mention a few instances).
Therefore, we are speaking of an era where punishing children for their mistakes, disciplining through harsh measures were normal and acceptable within the society and families. Naturally, what was acceptable within the society and families was equally acceptable in schools and institutions, as well.
In other words, what often happens within the Church and other social institutions during an era is a reflection of what happens within the society at that time. (I am not justifying or defending the cruelty of anyone here.) However, it needs to be said, the institutional child sex abuse cases, so-called evil and frustrated nuns who used extreme measures to discipline children…. all these… were true reflections of what was happening within families and societies at that time. After all these women did not fall out of the sky, all of a sudden, they grew up in a society and in a culture that had something to do with their upbringing.
One might argue, they should have known better. Well… we believe we know better now, after having lived another 50-60 years more. The world and society have progressed. However, if you are an individual who lived in the aforementioned era, would you still have this clarity at that time? I doubt!
Therefore, who is to blame here? Or, who is the scapegoat who will take the blame now???
The ACP have come off the fence and have given voice to what had been a destruction of the wonderful ministry that was carried out by many religious women who followed their calling for that I’m grateful.
This also goes alongside the many religious men who served in similar roles.
Yes some did so much damage and others buried their heads in the sand alongside many in the secular world.
Sadly, the painful part is that when certain matters arise the populist media seek out certain clergy for sound bites but don’t appear to seek out those who might point out home truths.
Let us take a moment and reflect on the religious, either woman or man, who played a positive role in our life journey.
Well said! The demonization of nuns and religious sisters (a literal demonization in the case of the horror movie “The Nun” and countless copycat movies) has all the hysteria and irrationality of the demonization of Muslims. There are dominant narratives that will not tolerate people of faith who dare to live out their faith in the public square and perhaps a certain strand of misogyny gives lie to the supposedly woke foundation of such prejudice. Muslim women who wear distinctive garb and nuns and religious sisters who once wore such garb seek to evoke a vicious reaction from some quarters.
A pathetic instance of this prejudice is evident in the movie “Small Things Like These” that depicts religious sisters in a supposedly 1980s setting (judging by the music, vehicles, and other clues in the movie) as medieval nuns in terms of their garb, demeanour and authoritarian community life. This disingenuous anachronism pushed a clear agenda that nuns and Ireland’s Catholic past was immersed in misery and evil with no redeeming characteristics. One might be forgiven for thinking that the superior of the community was the abbess who had just killed Robin Hood earlier that day. Granted, in the 1980s, there was a degree of diversity among and within the congregations but for the most part religious sisters in the 1980s were educated, enlightened, ethically-engaged people who championed Vatican II, Catholic Social Teaching, and the empowerment of women, the laity and the poor, many of them living in small communities in council estates, blocks of flats and even halting sites.
The sisters who influenced me in my vocation as a teacher and scholar of theology make me proud to be Catholic. I think in particular of Sr. Mairead Hughes SSL in Jobstown (Tallaght) whose ministry changed and, it is no exaggeration to say, saved lives as she championed the needs of disadvantaged youth in the toughest of environments.
Religious Sisters:
Sr Maria Kenny’s funeral took place this morning in St Patrick’s Church, Ringsend. Maria worked for years in Ringsend. Some of us recall Maria, working in St Monica’s Hoxton. (London East End). She was a wonder woman. She was everything a ‘religious’ is supposed to be. She was there for everyone. She knew everyone and everyone knew her. Her profile stirs in many of us, gratitude for all the good, religious women have done, and are doing among us. Most of us received our education, due to the Religious. The quoted words of Pope Francis to the Sisters of St Catherine’s in Siena grate on the nerves.
The social services of the past – in education; in nursing; in home visiting; in caring through sickness or problems; in bereavement, all happened with the Religious Sisters. They did the true work of diaconate before the issue of female deacons became a discussion question. Certainly, the Church needed the female element to make God real. The complementarity of life in Church was essential, where the male leadership was, and is, insufficient and incomplete. We have more work to do on this.
I recall Ray Field some years ago, when Pastoral Workers were being introduced into the Dublin Diocese. Clearly a salary had also had to be thought through for the Pastoral Workers. Ray was strong in his comments. He believed that we took the Sisters for granted. A salary for them was hardly ever discussed. What they did, was what they should do, seemed to be the prevailing attitude. Ray spoke in terms of Justice.
I remember too in education (schools), when religious were replaced by lay staff, which was the right thing to do. It took three people to cover for one religious. The religious skimped and saved to make do for the children. They went without. It is all very interesting, but shouldn’t be forgotten. And usually is. Appreciation, admiration and above all gratitude should flow from all of us.
Sr Maria was an inspiration. There are many such Marias. We do need to celebrate them in life, and not only in death.
Shalom
Seamus Ahearne osa 11th January 2025.
I grew up in an Ireland where emotional and physical abuse were acceptable in all of the families I knew in a rural comfortable community! There were no clear boundaries and certainly inappropriate sexual behaviour was tolerated and In adulthood I learned of such behaviour with my 8 siblings and abusive adult males known to family. These abusive nuns and priests came from such families.
I recall in my teens we were aware the local curate was known as a ‘peeping Tom’, spying on courting couples! Responsible adults turned a blind eye. My experience as a school child was a male teacher who would kick a young lad in the backside! Moving to a convent school in the town it was mixed, one particularly cruel nun would rap you on the knuckles with her wooden ruler or if in domestic science, class with a wooden spoon.
I was blessed to be sent to a wonderful convent boarding school aged 13. I was a wild country child, however, all my misdemeanours were handled with care and kindness and I look back with great affection on my boarding school days and was blessed to be successful academically and moved to UK, married and have had a great career and family life. I have ‘nun friends’ who have told me of being verbally abused and spat at in the street! Our church has not shouted out loud enough the defend these faith-filled women.
During my informative years and beyond, the religious sisters were my teachers, my mentors and my inspiration. In mid-life with the “empty nest” looming I applied for a bursary offered by the Ursuline sisters. Their money supported me in completing a Master’s degree. The degree was transformative and I will always be grateful!