What Happens When Nuns/sisters Leave The Order?

[FancyPantsMcGovern]

What do you tell someone who had a bad experience leaving religious life?

11 minutes ago, FancyPantsMcGovern said:

What do you tell someone who had a bad experience leaving religious life?

 

oops

[vee]

19 hours ago, FancyPantsMcGovern said:

What do you tell someone who had a bad experience leaving religious life?

 

Don't tell them what to do with their life!  "Why don't you go back to school?"  "What would you like to do?"  "Why don't you do such and such a job?"  Don't say any of these things!   

[Feankie]

You just need to be with them as they  journey through and process the many emotions that are going through ....to walk with them as they figure out their next steps, grieve (most commonly), and deal with their own personal feelings, etc.  As a SD I can tell you that most whatever you say will be taken the wrong way.  Just let your friend know that you will be there for her in whatever capacity she needs you to be.  That you will be available to her when/if/how she needs you without overlaying your need to be helpful, compassionate, wise, etc.  Most women who have left or who have been asked to leave desperately need their "space" to process and "own" their feelings,  and that can present itself in a variety of ways.  Often when saying the "wrong" or inappropriate thing, you can exacerbate their emotional stress -- and I won't go into what that might be as they differ from woman to woman.  Just be present.......and pray for them......not your will, not their will, but His will be done.

Edited August 23, 2017 by Francis Clare

[FancyPantsMcGovern]

Okay, thanks. Just from stuff she's said, I never knew things like that happened. She was forced to leave even though they told her she did nothing wrong. I mean, she's bald because she just shaved her head.  I think its' really hard so I'm trying not to pry. I don't think I want to be a nun but if I did I would have to think twice now.  

I don't know what her plans are for the future, or if she has any yet.

Edited August 24, 2017 by FancyPantsMcGovern
forgot something

[vee]

Aww. Give her a hug and a big pile of chocolate, and just be reassuring and there to listen. 

[dominicansoul]

13 hours ago, vee said:

Don't tell them what to do with their life!  "Why don't you go back to school?"  "What would you like to do?"  "Why don't you do such and such a job?"  Don't say any of these things!   

Get a job already 

[vee]

Just now, dominicansoul said:

Get a job already 

 

 

 

Having ds for a friend really makes things worse!!!!

[AveMariaPurissima]

On 8/22/2017 at 4:15 PM, FancyPantsMcGovern said:

What do you tell someone who had a bad experience leaving religious life?

 

 

I would also make sure she's aware of Leonie's Longing, a wonderful apostolate that assists women who have left religious life. They've been a huge help to me in the time since I left the convent. I've met lots of great people, and it has helped me so much to know I'm not alone in my experiences, feelings, etc.

[FancyPantsMcGovern]

I never knew that so many people left religious life after becoming nuns.

I will give her the link to Leonie's Longings. I looked at it and I thought it was good that they have a letter from their bishop. 

[kjw]

I was hoping someone in this community may be able to help.  

I started 1st grade at St. Anthony grade school in 1963 in the same year a Monsignor Mead finished our new church in Missoula.   Somewhere around 4th or 5th grade is where my memories of a Sr. Veronica BVM, start.   Within the next few years she would change her name to Sr. Teresa Joy BVM.  She and Mr. Hodge, the only male teacher at the school to that date I know of, were our 7th grade teachers.  We would like to invite Sister to a reunion which he has expressed interest in coming to.  Our problem ... she left the order years later and well ... where does one start?  I have heared she married and continued to teach in the state of Washington.   

A Bride of Christ leaves some heart breaking stories, but a bunch of adults with grateful life stories built on the foundation of the kindness and tough love of our Nuns, with the discipline to be there for us every day, year after year... we just want to find her and hear her stories and say thanks.  To all of you for setting our lives off to a good start.

Any help from any of you would be greatly appreciated.  kj

[Feankie]

Is this the right Phorum for this post?  Would it get more exposure or perhaps a “lead” in one of the other locations on Phatmass?

[Luigi]

10 hours ago, kjw said:

I was hoping someone in this community may be able to help.  

I started 1st grade at St. Anthony grade school in 1963 in the same year a Monsignor Mead finished our new church in Missoula.   Somewhere around 4th or 5th grade is where my memories of a Sr. Veronica BVM, start.   Within the next few years she would change her name to Sr. Teresa Joy BVM.  She and Mr. Hodge, the only male teacher at the school to that date I know of, were our 7th grade teachers.  We would like to invite Sister to a reunion which he has expressed interest in coming to.  Our problem ... she left the order years later and well ... where does one start?  I have heared she married and continued to teach in the state of Washington.   

A Bride of Christ leaves some heart breaking stories, but a bunch of adults with grateful life stories built on the foundation of the kindness and tough love of our Nuns, with the discipline to be there for us every day, year after year... we just want to find her and hear her stories and say thanks.  To all of you for setting our lives off to a good start.

Any help from any of you would be greatly appreciated.  kj

Contact the BVM provincial office. They often stay in touch with their former sisters, and even have their own entering-class reunions. After all, even if one or some have left the order, they were still friends - often close friends - for a number of years.

[kjw]

Thank you for this help.  kj

[kjw]

 

On 11/1/2017 at 7:07 PM, Francis Clare said:

Is this the right Phorum for this post?  Would it get more exposure or perhaps a “lead” in one of the other locations on Phatmass?

As you see I am new here and do not understand your question.  My ignorance of this site map hopefully does not interfere with my ability to get help in a heartfelt quest.  

Could you please fully explain your need to place lead in quotes "lead" because this has a highly personal significance to me and I truly do not understand why you isolated this or felt the need to do so.  What am I missing  that perhaps others at this site would understand?

[Feankie]

I simply meant that you might have more success in getting information. ( a lead) in the prayer request or open mic portions of Phatmass.  My intent was to see how you could get the most exposure to your query.

This particular thread has been focused on how/ what/ why/ how to interact and possibly help those women we know who have left religious life and returned to the world for a variety of reasons.  

Hope that helps.

[TabiBookaholic]

I made an account specifically to reply to this thread. The first page of comments from 7 years ago made me think of things I had never considered. 

 

You see I am working on my ancestry and found out that my paternal grandmother was adopted by a former nun. She had taken her final vows but for whatever reason left. I don't know how she met her husband, but the next census shows them living in a different state on a farm with an adopted daughter. It is a touchy subject for that whole side of my family. They swear no final vows were taken. 

 

I confirmed through the archivist for her order though. This took place in the mid 1920's. 

 

For some reason, I couldn't understand how they could all still be so devoutly Catholic and yet feel it was shameful. In my mind, it was incredible that she had ever felt that was her calling and that she was a teacher while there to boot. Not to mention she spent a total there of something like 9 years. 

 

Those posts on the first page opened my eyes to my idiocy on the subject though. I can only imagine how hard it was for her and the things that were said.

 

TL:DR Thank you. I have a totally different insight on my Great Grandmother.

[kjw]

"Those posts on the first page opened my eyes to my idiocy on the subject though. "

I have been on a fruitless search myself.  May I ask what you ment in the above quote?

[TabiBookaholic]

8 hours ago, kjw said:

"Those posts on the first page opened my eyes to my idiocy on the subject though. "

I have been on a fruitless search myself.  May I ask what you ment in the above quote?

I just meant that I had never seen being a former nun as something to be ashamed of or to hide. I was full of pride that I had a relative who had even felt that was her calling. My maternal family are not exactly religious and differently not Catholic, that all comes into play on my paternal side. So when I would ask about where her order had been, how long she was in, etc. I was always given half answers and long speeches about how this wasn't something to poke around.

 

Seeing how some, not all, of the people on the first page were treated when they left though made me realize that for some it is seen as a fail for some reason. They are judged as being selfish, or as not having enough faith. Being that my paternal side continued to follow Catholicism and are very devout... I can see how back then this was something they had been taught was something shameful or to hide. My Great Grandmother left the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1925 to raise a family. She found her calling on a small farm in Montana with her husband and infant daughter. In such a small town, with such orthodox followers... I understand now that as that daughter grew up she was probably not given the best view of a nun leaving the order. Her children would have those views taken further as she went on to marry a divorced man. Their marriage wasn't recognized by their church for around 30 years.

 

I am so used to things now. Divorce is no big deal, children born out of wedlock, nuns finding other callings. These things happen. I don't judge in any possible way because I myself was born out of wedlock. I myself had children out of wedlock. I tend to forget the world wasn't always so liberal in these things and how much they shaped my family and their views. I can't force my paternal family to feel as I do about her time as a nun. Now I know, thanks to these posts, that I shouldn't push for it either. They each faced their own demons over it and that is their burden, not mine to straighten out for them.

[kjw]

Thank you for your reply.  I see the dilemma.   If they are part of my generation,  I guess their reluctance is a function of being brought up in a time when we were taught not to question our faith.
 My roots are Southern Baptist.   I am born-raised Catholic.  I  only know Baptist from a delightful movie,  “Last Holiday”.  
Ironically, I being born in a town where … A River Runs Through It,  was surprised to see how this movie depicts how “religious” view … religious, especially Baptist. 
One has to hand it to the Baptist.  Anger is what we all at times live with and my roots seem to go toe to toe with their “god”, while I was raised walking on egg shells with our one and only “God”.  I wonder if on the whole Baptist are a healthier group?
My children followed in my wife’s and my footsteps with 12 years of Catholic education.  I mirrored with my children as it relates to his Brides.  I had 8 Nuns and one non-Nun in grades k -8. My children, 8 and 1 Nun.  
They are now adults and I recently asked if they were familiar with the term “Brides of Christ”.  Well, apparently this term has gone the way of the term “Pagan babies”.  Pennies were what we brought in by the envelope to help these lost souls.   My wife and I grew up in the Church when all three of these had tremendous value.  In these few years this represents quite a change from the world I grew up in.  My final years, high school, was spent with the learned Jesuits.  To my amazement,  a Jesuit can now be a Pope.  Times do change.
The Nuns I knew through all those years, rain or shine, heat or bitter wind and cold were there for us every day whether we liked them or not.  They motivated and … well the above says it all.  
But … they also started to leave as divorce rates rose.  The Church was very hard on those parents who would break what God had joined.  For those in my class … whose parents did go their separate ways, these parent’s children, who in our Nun’s eyes where special … were these Nuns forced to examine their circumstance and the reality of their own vows?  Has the Church done all it can to help these Nuns and the implications held in the phrase “Brides …”.  Families of all kinds have disagreements.  
This question is relevant since many families of this era, divorced parents leaving children of my generation went to Him without the benefit of this evolving Church.  Are the Nuns of my era also now leaving in large numbers without an answer?  They were asked to participate in an activity that is legally troubling in all 50 states.  
One in particular, who filled my life as a 7th grader is missing and we as a class would just love to say thank you … eternally.
 

[Thijs]

One sad story, I knew of a lady on her 50s from the Philippines I met through a friend who was asked to leave her congregation. She was sent to study in the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago to do graduate studies for the purpose of training their future sisters in formation when she get back after graduate studies. Her congregation is still a under the protection of a diocese in the Philippines where their motherhouse is located ;  quite poor but many women joining and their primary apostolate is cathechesis and helping various diocese in pastoral formation. Sad thing is she was inhook with enneagram, Schillebeeck, heterodoxy, Zen philosophy, The Synergy Engine and anti-Catholic feminism. She was in-charge as a mistress of the novices and directress of their on-going formation for perpetually professed sisters. While on this position she teaches all those stuff mentioned that made new vocation uncomfortable and some left to join other congregation. The mother general got very upset and she was sent to apply to teach in a local Catholic university. The students made a complaint to the university until such time it reaches the archbishop and made her to resign from teaching. She was asks and pleaded by her superiors to reconsider her views but she decided to pack her bag and rent an apartment to live by herself. A year later, she was asked to leave and she requested a dispensation which was granted. She is now active in a seance,  enneagram and sort of a life coach.

I am a new convert at that time and just done my psychotherapy studies and graduate school. I was in the Philippines for vacation and a religious sister who used to based in the parish near my university told her to contact me since I was on her area. We talked and explained things a lot. I had to restrained myself not to overdo my zeal as a new convert and focus on helping her cope up with the loss of a community, friendship, love and desire to do something for the betterment of the world. She thought I was foolish to hold on to such traditional beliefs having been a graduate  of a top tier university but she was respectful since she knows I of equal in terms of intelligence.

We are still friends. I still do help her online to settle her issues in life. It is tough but that's her choices; good or bad, she made that choice.Right now she wish to found a community based on the synergy principle of Barbara Marx Hubbard, 2 women but later left.  I still pray for her to go back to the Church and receive the Sacraments. She is a friend and  actually she helped me grow in my Catholicism even more and when I heard Pope Francis talks about going to the peripheries; I remember her .

Out of curiosity at that time, I visited their motherhouse and talk to the mother general and try to discuss her situation. The mother general cried and she is one of the sister they love the most . I told her of who I am and what I do. I told him my profession and she plead for me to give them a talk about it to her community.  I gave some talks about pyschotherapy to her congregation at that time regarding  dealing  with issues facing such community, what to do when someone leaves, how to counsel people, how to grow moral fortitude and integrate faith and psychology well that one is not the enemy of other (in Catholic perspective) and how to help people with moral problems like sexual dependency, drug or porn addiction etc. The mother general ended her term 2 years ago and is busy with formation of her sisters as well as doing apostolic work with people that is drug dependents. I have a lots of messages from her asking for professional help on some cases new to her. 

8 minutes ago, Thijs said:

One sad story, I knew of a lady in her 50s from the Philippines (I met through a friend) who was asked to leave her congregation. She was sent to study theology in the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago  for the purpose of training their future sisters in formation when she get back after graduate studies. Her congregation is still a under the protection of a diocese in the Philippines where their motherhouse is located ;  quite poor but many women joining and their primary apostolate is cathechesis and helping various diocese in pastoral formation. Sad thing is she was inhook with enneagram, Schillebeeck, heterodoxy, Zen philosophy, The Synergy Engine and anti-Catholic feminism. After her doctorate, she was task  as a mistress of the novices and directress of their on-going formation for perpetually professed sisters. While on this position she teaches all those stuff mentioned that made new vocation uncomfortable and some left to join other congregation. The mother general got very upset and she was sent to apply to teach in a local Catholic university. The students made a complaint to the university until such time it reaches the archbishop and the archbishop sent a letter to the university demanding her to be removed from teaching theology. She was asks and pleaded by her superiors to reconsider her views but she decided to pack her bag and rent an apartment to live by herself. A year later, she was asked to leave and she requested a dispensation which was granted. She is now active in a seance,  enneagram and sort of a life coach.

I am a new convert at that time and just done my psychotherapy studies and graduate school. I was in the Philippines for vacation and a religious sister who used to based in the parish near my university told her to contact me since I was on the area. We talked and discuss a lot of things.  I had to restrained myself not to overdo my zeal as a new convert and focus on helping her cope up with the loss of a community, friendship, love and desire to do something for the betterment of the world. She thought I was foolish to hold on to such traditional beliefs having been a graduate  of a top tier university but she was respectful since she knows I am of equal in terms of intelligence/knowledge maybe and had years of training and experience.

We are still friends. I still do help her online to settle her issues in life. It is tough but that's her choices; good or bad, she made that choice.Right now she wish to found a community based on the synergy principle of Barbara Marx Hubbard, 2 women joined  but later left and she is all alone.  I still pray for her to go back to the Church and receive the Sacraments. She is a friend and  actually she helped me grow in my Catholicism even more and when I heard Pope Francis talks about going to the peripheries; I remember her .

Out of curiosity at that time, I visited their motherhouse and talk to the mother general and try to discuss her situation. The mother general cried and she is one of the sister they love the most . I told her of who I am and what I do. I told him my profession and she plead for me to give them a talk about it to her community.  I gave some talks about pyschotherapy to her congregation at that time regarding  dealing  with issues facing such community, what to do when someone leaves, how to counsel people, how to grow moral fortitude and integrate faith and psychology well that one is not the enemy of other (in Catholic perspective) and how to help people with moral problems like sexual dependency, drug or porn addiction etc. The mother general ended her term 2 years ago and is busy with formation of her sisters as well as doing apostolic work with people that is drug dependents. I have a lots of messages from her asking for professional help on some cases new to her. 

.