As this is a personal letter, comments are turned off for this post, and blanks are intended to mask personal or place names.
April 24, 2022
Dear Prioress [______],
I hope this letter finds you well. What a
stressful time these past couple of years have been. No doubt one of the most
challenging in history for the prioress of [____]. We are all on a precipice of
change, no matter our life and circumstances. I didn’t think I would write this
year, but I have a matter of some import to which both of us have no doubt
given a great deal of thought. I hope I can speak my mind, and you will destroy
the letter without replying.
All is well with my self, except that last
year I got a diagnosis of macular degeneration. My vision is starting to go and
in a few years from now I will no longer be able to write, except through some
sort of dictation. For now, I have stopped night driving and I use some
accessibility features on electronics which help a lot. Maybe some day I will
phone you and say hello that way. I will always remember that Sister [___] said,
“keep at it,” and so I will.
The matter I speak of is sadly the Indian
boarding school that my former community had. I saw on your website the same
situation. I am following the LCWR’s actions and those of my former community,
and in the process took note of what has occurred so far.
Last fall I began correspondence with a
survivor of our school, which came about while researching my family matters.
You might recall my father was an attorney. My family owned property near the
tribes served by the former school, and he built the [____] in a nearby town.
My father also mucked about filing cases in court for many years in the area.
I wanted to see if any of these things
caused damage for people, because he was among many at the time for whom the
area was their “personal playground.” For example, I recently found a case of
him not paying local taxes and fighting it all the way to the State Court of
Appeals, only to lose due to the ridiculousness of it demonstrated easily by
locals. Stuff like that. Fighting a few hundred dollars of tax money to an
impoverished area while he always carried at least two grand in cash in his wallet.
I’m still researching all this family
stuff, because more things are showing up online now, court cases and
newspapers and such. My family is mostly gone, but I want to make sure any
family business is taken care of. My father was a very public person and
politically involved as well. That’s how I ran across the search entries about
the school, which surprised me.
The survivor I exchanged correspondence
with is now writing a book, along with various publications pertaining to the
school. You are probably aware of these articles. Many stories are coming out,
and the book has a large publishing deal which indicates it will be highly
promoted. I hadn’t fully realized our school had been a boarding school, because
it converted to a day school like all our other schools. It closed in the 1960s,
so of course it was a 15 year+ memory at the time I was in the order. Today we
have really nobody left who taught at the school or even recalls it beyond
knowing the history.
I and the survivor attended [_____] to
look more closely at what the sisters are doing to learn about the school legacy
and take responsibility. Then I gave some names, so the survivor set up an
appointment to visit the archives.
Since then, I have been decoding subtext
and interpreting the language used by sisters in my order, currently in public
and in documents like the history book, hopefully to be of some assistance. You
know how it is, a room with nuns can have 20 conversations going on in which
nobody says a word, but all know what is being said and thought. We have lots
of contextual language in common in religious life, we take meanings for
granted that are obscure or hidden to someone who isn’t a nun in that community.
I have also been digging through my old letters (you know firsthand how many
letters I wrote back then!) and any photos.
I found one letter from a sister who was
in authority back in my time, and later elected to further leadership. She was
also a [__], and a beloved person, though she passed some years ago.
In the letter, she talks about the extent to which the community was aware of
emotionally disturbed sisters, the extent to which these sisters are discussed
at the highest level of authority and the types of conversations that are had
at that level. She expressed regret back in her early days that few sisters
received any type of help when they clearly had “issues.”
The allegations name specific sisters with
incidents of abuse. One account identifies a house superior. Yet another superior
documented in writing her intention to [_______], and she was told not to do
this by the Bureau, also in writing.
My view expressed in the interviews I have
done for the book is that there is no possible way these abusive sisters
operated without the knowledge of others, the sisters of the house and indeed
the authority of the motherhouse. If it is claimed the motherhouse had no
knowledge of the abuse, this would be an example of the operation as a fiefdom
and a silo, a house allowed to operate with an authoritarian superior with less
or no oversight. This means that either way people knew and did/said nothing,
and the result is nobody took oversight action to remove or stop the abusive
sisters.
The history book chapter is rather telling
in the subtext. “The sisters stood loyally behind [the abusive Superior].” To
me this is saying “nobody talked,” and such a statement of “loyalty” was
perhaps what we call virtue signaling today, a sentence saying to the community
as a whole something like, “here is an example of a difficult mission,
difficult house, or difficult superior and this is how you bear up and put up,
and you can do likewise because your mission is surely nowhere near as
difficult as what these sisters are doing.” If you had complaints, you “offered
it up” for the “poor souls in purgatory” or whatever. I believe that sentence
has implicit and shared understanding of the mission of the school, the
community impressions of it, and an example of the “virtue of loyalty,” in
community. Pride heroics, too.
Anyway, that is my interpretation of the
history and really, the book chapter on the school is terrible to read today
overall, the language used is full-on racism. It is what it is, all too sadly.
I am backing my interpretation with the letter, that while “nobody talked,”
they still knew everything going on. You can’t treat kids like that without
others hearing and knowing, among other things like the even worse attempts to
erase the children’s identity and language. Nothing is unknown or even unclear
in a small, insular place like a convent. That is just the reality.
The decision to talk about all this for
the book, especially producing the letter I mentioned, is a terrible one for
me. I have nothing but gratitude and love for my former community, and this is
not the way I want to show it.
When I was in formation, the definition of
Obedience was not the “plant a cucumber in the ground face down,” as Teresa of
Avila wrote about concerning the idiocy of using obedience in nonsensical ways.
The very first definition of Obedience for me was “confidentiality in the
community.” Of course, I understood at that time the issue of confidentiality
was related more to the experiences of the past in religious life, when letters
were read and phone calls screened, when decisions about your life made by a
single person, your superior, rather than today’s version of group discernment
and multiple levels of authority.
Yet the old ways of Obedience running
every detail of your life make it even more likely for others to see what you
are doing as a sister, which makes it difficult to convince people now that
nobody saw your bad behavior all those years ago. I for one was on the
receiving end of corrections constantly for incredible minutiae as well as more
serious matters. You can probably imagine the number of anonymous notes the
novice director received on me (none of them terribly bad and certainly all of
them pertained to things I did with my childish personality).
And that points to an established culture
of anonymous reporting as well. Did anyone use that further back in the day? I
would say, probably so. Even if one was teaching in a rather isolated place,
there were summer retreats and various other opportunities to say something,
even anonymously. To say doing that was “difficult” is just an excuse, really.
Anonymous reporting is all too easy in religious life.
But the whole issue of confidentiality was
not meant to obscure actions that should be reported, like child abuse. When I
started working with my teaching license back in the 1980s, still as a nun, I
was instructed of my lifelong duty to report to the police or social services
any abuse related to children. Then later, in human services I understood this
lifelong duty to report also includes assisting survivors with anything that
can help them establish the truth of what happened.
The community can easily dismiss anything
I choose to say and tell themselves I’m a disgruntled former member, or some
such, even though I am the opposite of disgruntled, my experience was
outstanding. They can decide that everything I say is only my view and not
their reality. They can diss my credentials in the field of education. But
there is no real disregarding the letter I’m sharing. It comes from someone who
was considered one of the wisest in leadership. The letter goes beyond whatever
my personal opinions or experiences were and expresses the exact opposite of a
disgruntled person.
To be honest, I don’t even know if the
survivor will use the letter. It may not be helpful to their premise at all. I
feel that it is something which pertains, and in this duty to assist, I hand it
over without dictating how a survivor uses it.
In the letter, I see in it a similarity
with what you all have on your website, that one sister reported physical abuse
when another sister visited the school. The sister reported appalling behavior towards
the children, and nothing “appeared” to have been done. In both communities
much harm was seen and too little acted upon. With all of it I don’t see a real
place of denial or minimizing, to even try is a new level of harm I don’t even
want to contemplate.
I don’t want to dwell too much on whatever
happens to me, though surely it will end the informal relationship I still have
with the community. I can expect any contact to cease, while that is a small
matter it also involves family members I have remaining inside. I was a very
young person then, as you know. I had nothing in my head aside from whatever I
was open to becoming. I think exactly like they do up until the point where I
don’t. I’m grateful for the person I became which is a great deal due to them.
I have their voices in my head, believe me they talk aplenty. Mostly that is
integrated with my own life and it’s comfortable until it isn’t, like now.
I do trust my group to make thoughtful
decisions, as much as in yours. Until they don’t do that. After an article came
out this week, they used a line from it that made them appear heroic, to
ostensibly promote the article, a mistake, and they removed it in one location.
In terms of action, the community has gone on record saying they aren’t sure
what they are going to do.
I’m curious as to what the LCWR considers
as “exploring your history,” the extent of that. We have the specific instances
of the schools. But will the communities of nuns explore the extent to which a
culture of religious and personal heroism played in determining who the “poor
souls” were or are that nuns tried to “educate,” or “save?”
Will anyone be honest enough to say, “God
probably didn’t ‘call’ us to convert or start a school on tribal lands?” It was
in fact an opportunity presented by the government and dioceses in the form of
lucrative contracts. One opportunity along with others that not only enriched us,
evidenced by the level of building going on, but conferred a life of privileges
like college degrees, health care, food and retirement. Things that people then
and now struggle to get. Anyone who would say “well you never know what God
calls” is just dissembling and excusing because God doesn’t call to genocide,
God doesn’t call to physically or sexually abuse children.
In fact, I don’t think there is anything
sisters can say on their behalf that appears less than insulting, re-traumatizing
and gaslighting in this context. But I can guarantee that many of our sisters
are probably hanging on for life that they worked hard for good, and they don’t
want to relinquish or tarnish that idea. And I do understand, I know how many
came from hardscrabble childhoods and are probably more vocally grateful than I
am. The point is, the payoff days came for us, at the expense of many. Priests
and nuns have accumulated an egregious level of social and material rewards.
Sorry it might hurt to let go of all that, for what went down so long ago, but
there it is.
I also think about the culture of
fundraising. The constant begging for money that communities did. Whether it
was needed or not. I am aware that the fundraising continued mostly non-stop in
rural parishes in the area of the tribes. I counted at least 80 years of local
begging for money to help the “poor tribes,” and a culture of tourist-ing the
children for white people with the object of getting money.
In addition to the harm to the people
involved, it perpetuated a cycle of re-enforcing entrenched racist ideas among
non-tribal locals that the tribes are a “problem,” and whatever the sisters
said the other locals no doubt agreed and handed over whatever the sisters
asked for. When I took my first parish job in the 80s, I was shocked to learn
that the county whites and the neighboring tribal border exchanged gunshots
regularly.
I wonder if anyone really questioned why
the sisters repeatedly asked for money to solve “problems” over an 80-year
period without anyone wondering how badly they must be failing, continually
wanting money for the same reasons, year after year. Anyone who says to me “oh
we only asked for what we ‘needed,’” then I got a story for them from my first
week in formation, when I turned down an offer of donated tomatoes because we already
had so many. I was told never turn down anything, always say “yes we need that”
because we can always find someone to take it. Heroic and greedy, really, but
of course it was gifting called begging alms, a religious act. People give to
sisters, don’t they?
The money itself washes away and
disappears in household budgets. I can see what was coming in, for the history
is remarkably frank on that, along with publicly held documents. I can’t see
what got sent to the motherhouse or what the household budget was. I know that
food got donated and maybe other donations that were purely for the sisters and
these often didn’t get documented. I don’t think my box of tomatoes got written
up. Stuff coming in on a daily basis just gets assumed.
But even if I knew what went to the
motherhouse, it washes out by going out to fund other works, like building
hospitals, and then later back to the school in years when the government
salaries were no longer accepted. We built hospitals and whatever else that
continue to be what most consider “assets of ongoing value,” that is, anything
which contributes to the local towns today in terms of health care, jobs,
education and taxes. We didn’t leave anything like that behind in the tribal
areas we worked, sadly.
Then we have the reality that the
communities are shrinking, so how much time can be spent on internal “soul
searching” before acting? That is no doubt something you have considered. The
soul searching has value mainly to the order, and it can be done at any time. If
indeed enough time remains when the public call now is to act.
When I was in teacher education, I had a
very fine sister of formidable character as my mentor. She told our classes of
“teachers-to-be” that if your students fail to succeed and thrive for whatever
reason, you as a teacher have failed. It is your failure and your
responsibility to accept. This was a non-negotiable, and I put that line in my
dissertation on the dedication page with her name. One of two questions I got
from my dissertation committee was where I got that quote.
Beyond teaching, one of the main reasons
for living a life in community is to consolidate resources and all share in
them. We shared in these rewards. I received more than most, my education,
therapy, leadership skills, travel experiences, even cooking classes since I
couldn’t boil an egg when I joined. It was even an advantage of sufficient
leisure time on my sisters’ part, to give attention to someone like me, you
know what I was like back then. I didn’t give back even a fraction of what I
received. I can certainly hope my life is a type of payback, but that’s just
wishful thinking resulting in mostly air and self-justification.
I only need to think of what happened with
those kids and see the legacy today. Any difficult thoughts I have are the
product of selfishness. Of course, I have scruples, like every former nun, and
here I probably go too far. It’s just that you know more than most what I
started with, and it only got better for me. We can’t say that for everyone we
“served.” This is not some sort of “politically correct” thinking, it’s the
truth and the abuse of students is not some propaganda tool to be used now, we
have facts that must be accepted as responsibility.
Thus, I feel that while we benefitted from
living in community and sharing resources, the same holds when the organization
itself is responsible, even when the sisters involved are no longer with us. We
shared in the benefits, we also must share in the responsibilities. In my mind
it’s incidental that members are alive but were never involved. History has
shifted, and the stories we never heard before are coming out.
The question I pose to myself is, what
would I have done? Had I stayed on, for at the age I am now I would have likely
be there today struggling with this very problem as you are doing. But I am not
in it, I am aware of that. I say everything with love, I hope.
Firstly, on the communication level. We,
myself included, need to be in a stance of lifting up stories of the survivors
with whatever light we can for all to see. We admit our part in all ways. We
admit to and talk about the religious culture of fiefdoms run by overlording
sisters who demeaned people and worse, silo-ing where abusive superiors and
other sisters operated outside of oversight, and the extent to which abusive
behavior was tolerated, the norm, or ignored or even promoted. We talk about
the harms of a culture of fundraising on behalf of the “poor___” fill in the
blank with the soul of the day’s fundraising. I think it’s possible to talk of
these things frankly.
These topics take place in companies in
the business world, and the language is understandable. While history may have
other words to describe what went on, our understanding is evolved now to use
terms like silo-ing and fiefdoms and talk about how that works when it happens.
And how Obedience is used to compel silence and the harm that can intentionally
or unintentionally happen. We need to be available to de-mystify our obscure
religious language that we tried to force on people and punished them when they
refused.
We don’t talk on and on about whatever advantages
we have. Everyone can see what they are, or they don’t give a crap. These are
what we must reckon with having access to, but our laundry is no one else’s to
wash, our tub is infinitely large and we will indeed scour as needed and like
conscious campers return whatever we can to how we found it, and consider more
closely what cannot be returned and what is needed and wanted instead.
Really, communication like this needs to
be normal in the sense that we have the skills, and we will discuss these
topics easily. The whole church needs to do it and if anyone can model how to
do that, they should. Can we model how to do that as an act of service and
truth?
Now I will enter a fictional world of my
own. I would undertake a study, hopefully not long in the making, of every
place we served and see what, if any, are “assets of ongoing value” that we
left behind. Hospitals are assets of ongoing value. A ring of bricks on the
ground is of no value.
Then I would dismantle everything,
whatever is left, in preparation for our death and leaving whatever possible
behind to whomever got left with the ring of bricks and especially children we
were given charge of, where we failed and worse. Doesn’t everyone try to look
after the children they are responsible for?
Most of our assets are tied up to care for
the aged, I’m sure yours are too. Though some of mine no doubt qualify for
other aid. Certainly, I was told all those years ago I would be responsible for
myself in old age, and I understood there would be no help and no one, and no
plan for what I could acceptably do back then. But that’s all resolved now.
I see younger ones making alternative
plans already. The aged remaining are not difficult to work with individually.
In real life, I have had up to 40 people in my direct responsibility when I
worked in case management with the state, and tertiary on-call responsibility
for another 100 on Medicaid. It was my job to arrange for ongoing wraparound care
for these people, by wraparound I mean a term that includes everything to do
with basic activities of daily living.
In my fictional situation, the property aside
from the skilled nursing facility has to go. I would carefully dismantle what’s
left, there is not a single sliver of [rare wood] or [rare marble] we have that
is not valuable, plus the added value given to nuns having owned something, the
whole price is a premium. Piece by piece we acquired it all in an age when
beautiful monuments were the Catholic way of getting creative. Nobody does that
now, nobody needs our stained glass to learn from, and we live more simply. Can
you see where I got this? I used to get nauseous in our chapel and longed for the
airy simplicity of yours. [Your monastery] affected me deeply, the chapel and
schola most of all. To go even simpler only frees us more for the truth.
Arranging all this can be a spiritual
exercise of planning for death in the same way every person does around the
world. I am certain you are much farther ahead of me in your thinking. I don’t
believe I am saying awful things here, we can take responsibility with love,
yes? It is not for us to tout what we did well, history will decide, and it may
be the boarding schools are what we are remembered for. I would hope we can
meet that moment with truth and everything else we have. Our inner and outer resources
are certainly part of that, especially where we left such things so sorely
lacking.
Our traditions have gone on for more than
1000 years, it won’t be our job to carry on, but someone else will. We also
have the apostolate of prayer, even if it only does us good as a way of life. I
don’t think it’s a bad idea for people to see us on our knees as often as
possible for every reason anyone can name. At minimum, I hope the pope will
someday soon declare a period of public and private repentance by religious and
clerics for what all have done in its name. I cannot imagine any sister
objecting to the idea of praying regularly, opening the doors and inviting
others where possible, which you already do.
If my letter and words are too burdensome
in any way, I am sorry. Just burn it, then. I don’t imagine you feel that way,
but I don’t really know. This is a long piece here which took time from your
life to read. Perhaps you feel I understand things not at all or badly. If I am
too self-indulgent, sorry for that too. I guess it’s a luxury I have, and I
admit it. But I also have a voice and I’m using it. This all is very painful
indeed, more so for those we tried to serve who are telling their stories now. I
wanted you to know what I did, in all its disobedience and for what reasons. As
bad as all this rambling is written, at the very least I feel you deserve
notice and explanation, given the 40 years next year we have known one another
on this earth.
I have only bit of backbone, it is because
I was taught and given such. I send it back to you, my friend, sincerely. I
hope and feel confident that you will tread the proper path forward, looking to
your sisters for the grace with which to guide the steps.
