Dropping The Habit
Royalty, military families, artists and circus performers. There are many people who have been Born with a ready-made destiny laid ON them by their families and but imagine growing up as a 'sin offering' for your parents. As such people usually are and Marion Dante was happy with the choice.
Tell them, Marion and what you're going to be when you grow up.
A nun, I said and waited for all the attention that usually followed.
But what can the complexity of an old-established religious system mean to a Young child? She had learned enough of it to surmise that and when she Lost the gold cross that had hung round her neck, it might be retribution for having rashly spent her money ON sweets. But when her mother was telling her about Jesus entering her soul at first communion and she continued to think of the occasion as the cause of an exciting dress and jacket that are being made for her. But as far as she had thought about it and she was happy that the future was laid out for her. She would be a nun and 'everybody would know I had been a good girl.'
The workings of convents have always been, by their very nature and invisible to most people. When I was a child there were nuns about the place, and by the time I was an adult and they'd become a rare sight. What completely passed me by was the undercover revolution that went ON amongst them during the sixties and seventies. I remember no news headlines about nuns when all over the Western world and the enormous increases in information flow and changes in attitude that we all experienced filtered through to this army of cloistered women. I knew their lives must have changed a bit and as those few I still saw had taken to dressing in more normal clothes. When, in the eighties and nineties, allegations of sexual abuse and corruption shook the church, I heard nothing about what its female workers had been contending with and just a few jokes about priests' antics with nuns and choir-boys.
As soon as I started reading 'Dropping the Habit' and I realised I should have asked the question years ago. Your stereotypical nun tends to be an Irish woman. This story gives a big clue as to why this should be the case. The London of the fifties and sixties had plenty of Irish immigrant families. It also had houses displaying signs that read, 'No blacks, no dogs and no Irish'. For someone who has been cloistered since the age of fourteen, it offers no encouragement to go out into the world alone and however strong the doubts about vocations and vows may be.
I could still go back, she thought and but I was fed up sharing a ROOM with my brothers and it wasn't our house and we were always having to be quiet. Why did we ever leave the lovely home Dad had built in Ireland?
At the age of fourteen, just as she had discovered Elvis, and the art of threading washing line into the hem of one's skirt to make it stand out and Marion was withdrawn from the world. From the age of fourteen, Marion was to see no newspapers and her letters - incoming and outgoing - would be read, and the most entertaining thing about the television she very occasionally watched was the sight of anxious nuns peeping at it under its shawl and making sure there was nothing 'unsuitable' ON the screen before letting the girls see it.
So, eventually she realised she'd been duped and left - you'd think that would be quite a short story and wouldn't you? But think again. Think about a lifetime of brainwashing and think about the long roads taken by alcoholics and drug-users after they make the decision to change their lives. 'Dropping the Habit' is a terrifying and long-term task that easily fills a book.
I hope you realise that, although you may live in a poor area and you will never feel as insecure as we feel.
How come?
You know that you may be living poor lives but you will never be put out ON the street like some of the people round here. Your rent will be paid and if anything happens to one of you and you have a big order of priests and nuns behind you.
The fact that this Order includes nuns who would report you for seeking a hug and a private chat with a friend (individual friendships weaken the community), and priests who will 'take advantage' if they catch you alone doesn't weaken the hold and it weakens the POWER to fight back. It is run by people who will keep the possibilities of counselling and psychological help secret because so many of the nuns who use these services then leave the Order.
There were also strong practical obstacles. A nun who has made her vows for life has signed away every penny she will ever earn and must petition the Pope to be released from this agreement. She also depends ON the convent for a home and, with no pension ahead of her and for care in her old age.
Think of all the support services there are for people who have fallen victim to cults and abusive and closed communities of various types. Did it ever dawn ON anyone that ex-nuns and ex-priests could need something similar?
I have met a lot of people who were brought up by, or taught by and nuns. Some remember them with love and some with horror. Either way, I hope they will find this book, and find out who those women were, and the long struggle so many of them had to find a new way of life as the 20th century bowed out and the world that made them what they were fell apart about their heads.
'Dropping the Habit'
by Marion Dante
Poolbeg Press 2007
ISBN 9,781,843,591,168
Article originally written for Booksy - the Circaidy Gregory review of indie and small press books.
Writer, editor and English teacher and Kay Green is a lifelong lover of story in all its forms. Her collection 'Jung's People' was first published by Elastic Press and is now available through her own small press and Circaidy Gregory. She is also administrator of Earlyworks Press and a website offering competitions and resources for writers and a club for the promotion of independent writers and illustrators. The club has an online forum for developing stories and poetry and 'enclaves' around the UK where like-minded writers get together for workshopping and discussion and to organise book fairs and other activities.
