Unveiled Facts About The Secret Lives Of Nuns
“Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”—Fulton J. Sheen.
What can’t nuns do? I mean, besides have intercourse, get married, or anything else that falls outside their holy promise. From tending to the sick to feeding the poor, and generally helping the community at large, “the nun”
historically enjoyed status as an image of endless charity. But is that the case for every nun? Before they were known for doing good works, nuns were much more hidden from mainstream life.
Cloistered in devotion, their concealed lives invited writers and laymen the world over to imagine holy sisters both as untouchably obscure and teeming with hidden desire.
But what was the truth? Has every nun in history been so willingly devoted? Which nuns were famous killers? What goes on underneath the veil? Read on to learn these 41 shocking facts about the secret lives of nuns.
Secret Lives Of Nuns Facts
41. It’s a Living
At the age of 11, Arcangela Tarabotti was forced into a convent by her family. Shockingly (to some), she grew up to be one of the most radical voices of critique against her own profession.
Considered a radical proto-feminist today, she wrote seven works (five published in her lifetime) which defended female education but also argued against the practice of “monachization”
—the enclosure of women and children into nunnery life against their will. It’s a stretch to call her a self-hating nun, but she was not afraid to call out the worst parts of the job.
40. Church Noir
As a precursor to the modern “femme fatale,” the “wayward nun” was an early trope in Christian medieval literature which also straddled the line between sex and mystery for kicks.
Writers would alternate between lauding the charms of this untouchable figure of learning and demonizing her transgressions of social norms. Sound familiar, film noir fans?
39. Double Trouble
Before Hortense Mancini was a mistress to Charles II of England, she was exiled to a nunnery by her abusive husband.While there, she took up, romantically and otherwise, with a young woman named Marie-Sidonie de Courcelles.
Naturally, the ladies spent most of their time pranking nuns and making zany escape attempts up the fireplace.
