Speaker 1: Before we start, I want to let you know that
Speaker 1: in this episode we discuss the topic of sexual abuse. Listener,
Speaker 1: discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: I really wanted that life that Jesus had of really
Speaker 2: living poverty, chastity, obedience, service.
Speaker 3: Velut vows of poverty chastity obedience, and the missionaries of
Speaker 3: charity have a fourth vowl, wholehearted and free service to
Speaker 3: the poorest of the poor.
Speaker 2: Mother Teresa was very concerned about the vow of chastity,
Speaker 2: almost to the point of paranoia. You're never supposed to
Speaker 2: get too close to one sister. You were married to
Speaker 2: the crucified Christ. There was so much fear around anything
Speaker 2: connected with human connection.
Speaker 3: How mistress of Earth, how heavenly queen, how virgin of virgins,
Speaker 3: all chaste and serene.
Speaker 2: You know, there are some very decent sisters here, and
Speaker 2: you're the best. There were regulations against what was termed
Speaker 2: particular friendship, and I didn't really catch the subtext at
Speaker 2: the time. She says, you want to get to know
Speaker 2: me better, and she's asking about my family. You're going
Speaker 2: to give up intimate relationships by a vow of chastity, Yesterdy,
Speaker 2: you must not have any particular friendships.
Speaker 1: For Coco Punch and iHeartRadio. This is the Turning America
Speaker 1: Lands Part five particular friendship.
Speaker 4: So I've just gotten into camp.
Speaker 5: And I'm heading to I'm not really sure where, because
Speaker 5: I've spoken to a couple of the sisters on the
Speaker 5: phone and they have the ridiculously vague about where I
Speaker 5: could find them.
Speaker 1: Chelby such Dave as a reporter in western India. We
Speaker 1: hired her to find a woman who used to be
Speaker 1: a missionary of charity and is still a sister, but
Speaker 1: with a different organization. This woman were trying to find.
Speaker 1: I called the house where she lived several times before
Speaker 1: I got her on the phone, but once I started
Speaker 1: to explain why I was calling, she quickly ended the conversation. Now,
Speaker 1: the other sisters in her group don't want to tell
Speaker 1: us anything, even where they're located.
Speaker 4: They won't tell me where I can reach up. They
Speaker 4: won't tell me where I can find her or when.
Speaker 4: They won't give me the address of their residents and
Speaker 4: where their order works.
Speaker 1: Out of the woman Chavi's trying to find is Niobi,
Speaker 1: the bold nun transferred to Mary Johnson's convent in Rome.
Speaker 1: The nun who told Mary I love you.
Speaker 4: I've got two envelopes with me. There are two versions
Speaker 4: of the letter.
Speaker 1: She has two drafts of a letter for Niobi in
Speaker 1: case Chavy can't actually talk to her. One of them's
Speaker 1: intentionally vague if we have to hand it to someone
Speaker 1: other than Niobi who might read it.
Speaker 4: The second letter is more explicit in the allegations and
Speaker 4: that I have put in an envelope that's a strictly
Speaker 4: confidential letter.
Speaker 1: This woman were trying to reach Niobi. She first entered
Speaker 1: Mery Johnson's life in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: She walked in with his presence that was so unlike
Speaker 2: what most of the missionaries of charity had, and so
Speaker 2: she caught my attention.
Speaker 1: Mary was twenty nine years old, Niobi was thirty nine.
Speaker 1: Niobi's not her real name, by the way. At this point,
Speaker 1: Mary had been with the EMCs for a decade, and
Speaker 1: for all those years, she'd been doing everything she could
Speaker 1: to center her life on love. Love was the point.
Speaker 1: It's why she joined the MCS in the first place.
Speaker 1: It's what she believed people needed most.
Speaker 2: And I think maybe because I had felt excluded in
Speaker 2: many of the different places I was and while my
Speaker 2: family was a very loving family. When I was growing up,
Speaker 2: there wasn't a lot of like I love you. There
Speaker 2: was doing things together, there was doing things for each other.
Speaker 2: I had that kind of like whole, a little bit
Speaker 2: like many many people do. I think, you know, we
Speaker 2: all longed to be loved, to be appreciated, to be seen,
Speaker 2: and not just for the things that we can do,
Speaker 2: but for who we are.
Speaker 1: Then one day, while Mary hung her clothes to dry,
Speaker 1: Naobi whispered in her ear, sister, Donata, I love you.
Speaker 1: The clothespin fell for Mary's hand.
Speaker 2: Does she mean like I love you the way I'm
Speaker 2: supposed to love all the sisters Jesus said, love one
Speaker 2: another as I have loved you. No, I don't think
Speaker 2: that's what she means. She's looking at me with this
Speaker 2: big smile in her eyes. She's waiting for an answer.
Speaker 2: She's what she do I And she picks up the
Speaker 2: clothespin that I dropped, and her arm brushes my arm,
Speaker 2: and I feel like this electric shock kind of thing
Speaker 2: going through me. And she goes away, and I'm looking
Speaker 2: all day long at the big blue sky and listening
Speaker 2: to the sounds of the birds, and everything feels.
Speaker 1: Like No, so you were happy.
Speaker 4: I was happy.
Speaker 2: I was confused. I was happy. I was But you know,
Speaker 2: what do you do the first time somebody says I
Speaker 2: love you in a way that sounds romantic and meaningful
Speaker 2: and personal. Hell, that felt good.
Speaker 1: One afternoon, the sisters were drinking tea, and Iobi slyly
Speaker 1: leaned over and told a joke in Mary's ear. When
Speaker 1: they all stood up to pray, the Superior gave Mary
Speaker 1: a weird look. Now the Superior wasn't just any mc
Speaker 1: Her name was Sister Joseph Michael. She was highly ranked
Speaker 1: in the order and pretty tight with Mother Teresa. In fact,
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa reportedly saw Sister Joseph Michael as a possible
Speaker 1: replacement for her one day. Now, Mary started to worry.
Speaker 1: Had the Superior seen something between her and Iobi. Later
Speaker 1: that afternoon, Sister Joseph Michael called Mary to her office.
Speaker 1: She told her to close the door and started pacing. Finally,
Speaker 1: Sister Joseph Michael spoke slowly and tentatively. She said she
Speaker 1: had a special job for Mary. Revised the constitutions, the
Speaker 1: mission and guidelines of the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa's
Speaker 1: path to holiness.
Speaker 2: And I was so totally floored, because we are always
Speaker 2: told that the constitutions are the voice of God. Mother
Speaker 2: Teresa had written the constitutions that the story goes on
Speaker 2: her knees by candlelight, after all the other sisters had
Speaker 2: gone to sleep.
Speaker 1: Mary's job was to update the constitutions to reflect current
Speaker 1: canon law. Canon law is basically the Catholic Church's internal
Speaker 1: legal system. When a new code of canon law is issued,
Speaker 1: Catholic orders review and update their own sets of guidelines.
Speaker 1: Mary was updating the MC guidelines after Pope John Paul
Speaker 1: the Second made revisions in the nineteen eighties. These canon
Speaker 1: law updates don't happen very often. Pope Francis just released
Speaker 1: new canon Law Revision twenty twenty one, and those were
Speaker 1: the first in nearly four decades. Every day Mary wheeled
Speaker 1: a portable typewriter out into the garden and worked her
Speaker 1: way through the constitutions. A new word here, a new
Speaker 1: paragraph there. She couldn't make big changes, but editing changed her.
Speaker 1: Maybe this rule book was as human as it was divine.
Speaker 1: If Mary could change the wording of the rules, maybe
Speaker 1: she could tweak them in her own life too. This
Speaker 1: was the backdrop of Mary's relationship with Niobe. While Mary typed,
Speaker 1: Niobi would peek her head into the garden and say,
Speaker 1: have a good day. Sometimes she winked.
Speaker 2: And when I was with Niobi, I finally felt myself
Speaker 2: as lovable and loved. This kind of thing I was
Speaker 2: trying to do for everybody else all the time, to
Speaker 2: make them feel seen. This was the center of what
Speaker 2: I was supposed to be doing, and for the first
Speaker 2: time I was feeling it for myself.
Speaker 1: In the week's followed, Mary talked to God about her predicament.
Speaker 1: She also thanked God because Naobi felt like a gift.
Speaker 2: How can this not be from God? If it's making
Speaker 2: me feel how God wants us to feel. God wants
Speaker 2: us to feel loved, How could that not be from God.
Speaker 1: As time passed, Naobi got older, she dropped the sister
Speaker 1: and just started calling Mary Donata.
Speaker 2: She's not saying, sister, donat to the way we were
Speaker 2: always supposed to do, so just dropping that sister was
Speaker 2: so intimate.
Speaker 1: She'd brush past Mary in the hall, touch her foot
Speaker 1: under the table. This made Mary nervous, really nervous. There
Speaker 1: was no privacy in the convent. Everyone knew everyone's business.
Speaker 1: But Naobi didn't stop, and Mary didn't stop her.
Speaker 2: We would bow down and touch our heads to the
Speaker 2: floor of the chapel. It was a tradition that was
Speaker 2: adopted from India, and it was really bad because sometimes
Speaker 2: she would get right behind me and she would grab
Speaker 2: hold of my feet when she'd bow down, and again,
Speaker 2: it felt kind of delicious, and at the same time,
Speaker 2: if anybody saw that, that would be a horrible It
Speaker 2: could be awful because I had been having this crisis
Speaker 2: of conscience because even though her love felt so good
Speaker 2: and it felt so much like God, and part of
Speaker 2: me believed it was a gift from God, another part
Speaker 2: of me knew it was wrong and that I shouldn't
Speaker 2: be having any sort of special relationship with her sister.
Speaker 2: What we were sharing was dangerous and against my vows,
Speaker 2: and I had actually determined that I was going to
Speaker 2: tell her that.
Speaker 1: But she didn't have the chance. Sister Niobi came with
Speaker 1: her own news. Niobi had been instructed not to tell anyone,
Speaker 1: but she was being transferred that same day. She had
Speaker 1: a new assignment in Napoli.
Speaker 5: I was so.
Speaker 2: Relieved because I had been It kind of like solved
Speaker 2: my problem, even though I knew I was going to
Speaker 2: miss her, and all of these different things whirling through
Speaker 2: my head at once. And she comes close to me
Speaker 2: and she says, never forget our secret, never forget that
Speaker 2: I love you, And I told her I love you too,
Speaker 2: the last words I said to her before she left.
Speaker 1: Mary finished updating the constitutions, but now she creped something.
Speaker 1: Those rules didn't allow something small, even just a hand
Speaker 1: on her.
Speaker 2: Arm, you know, even like the sign of peace at mass,
Speaker 2: where people would normally shake hands, we do that kind
Speaker 2: of nama stay sort of thing where you join your
Speaker 2: hands in front of your chest and bow to each other.
Speaker 2: So really nothing, nothing as far as touch goes.
Speaker 1: One day, a van from Napoli showed up at the
Speaker 1: convent with supplies, and when Mary went to greet it,
Speaker 1: Naobi was there unpacking the boxes. Mary was thrilled. She
Speaker 1: asked Naobi to come inside with her.
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, I've been thinking about something
Speaker 2: and I want to ask you something, and she says sure,
Speaker 2: ask I said, will you hold me? She says hold you?
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, just put your arms around me for
Speaker 2: a minute, and she kind of looks at the windows
Speaker 2: and I maneuver us into a place where nobody will
Speaker 2: see us and close a couple blinds. And then she
Speaker 2: puts her arms around me, and it feels so good.
Speaker 2: And she leans over and she kisses the top of
Speaker 2: my sorry covered head. I could hear her heart beating,
Speaker 2: I could feel her arms around me. It is like
Speaker 2: everything inside me is melting. She held me just a
Speaker 2: second more and then she went away.
Speaker 1: Naobi got back in the van and left. It would
Speaker 1: be three years before Mary saw her again.
Speaker 6: So, like most of you, I used to be a nun,
Speaker 6: very relatable. That's very relatable and stand up comedy to
Speaker 6: get up and start to talk about how you used
Speaker 6: to be a nun And I used to be ann
Speaker 6: with the outfit and everything.
Speaker 1: Kelly Dunham followed her calling all the way from the
Speaker 1: missionaries of charity to the stage.
Speaker 6: So the first question is, oh like the sound of music. No,
Speaker 6: there were less children in matching outfits and less Nazis
Speaker 6: in my story.
Speaker 1: Kelly lives in Brooklyn. She lasted about two years as
Speaker 1: a sister with the MCS. To use her words, she
Speaker 1: flunked out. She had the hardest time with the valve
Speaker 1: of chastity, not the sex part. That wasn't it. It
Speaker 1: was the way the emces took the vow so far,
Speaker 1: avoiding all friendship. Initially, the Order sounded like a fantasy
Speaker 1: women working together toward a common goal of caring for others. Instead,
Speaker 1: Kelly says she would be asked to leave her humanity behind,
Speaker 1: but it definitely makes for good material.
Speaker 6: One time we got up in the morning and Sister
Speaker 6: Melager told us that if we really loved Jesus, we
Speaker 6: would mortify ourselves by going to the bathroom only once
Speaker 6: a day. Now I thought she was kidding, so I
Speaker 6: laughed and said, okay, just call me Sister Mary bladder infection.
Speaker 6: She didn't think that was funny.
Speaker 1: Kelly joined the Order for idealistic reasons, but when she
Speaker 1: looks back, she knows she was a little different from
Speaker 1: the stereotypical MC. First off, she didn't grow up Catholic.
Speaker 1: She was raised as an evangelical Christian.
Speaker 6: I'm also, you know, like a very queer person. Even
Speaker 6: though I did not know it then, I just knew
Speaker 6: I didn't fit in very well.
Speaker 1: She first got involved with the Missionaries of Charity in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety as a volunteer in Haiti. Most aid organizations
Speaker 1: in Haiti frustrated her. They didn't seem to give Haitian
Speaker 1: people a voice. But as she saw the MCEs listened
Speaker 1: to what locals had to say. She loved how the
Speaker 1: Sisters looked in their sories, how they worked so hard,
Speaker 1: how strong they were.
Speaker 6: By that spring, I was in love not with like
Speaker 6: one sister, but like with all of them.
Speaker 1: Before she could join the MCS, she had to convert
Speaker 1: to Catholicism.
Speaker 6: As it turns out, they kind of insist on that thing.
Speaker 1: While Kelly was becoming a Catholic, she volunteered with the
Speaker 1: Sisters in Miami, and eventually she got wored. The MCS
Speaker 1: had accepted her she would start her training in New York.
Speaker 1: So the Sisters in Miami had her over for Tea
Speaker 1: to say goodbye.
Speaker 6: And they made me this card. You know. I opened
Speaker 6: it up and it was like, welcome to your beautiful
Speaker 6: vocation and it said something like you know, your love
Speaker 6: of Christ must destroy you completely. And then it had
Speaker 6: like little pictures, little like red drops off the words,
Speaker 6: and they're like, oh, it's the blood of Jesus, Like wow,
Speaker 6: this is so gruesome.
Speaker 1: Your love of Christ must destroy you completely. One of
Speaker 1: the professed Sisters pulled Kelly aside.
Speaker 6: She said, if at some point you feel like they're
Speaker 6: really breaking your head, then you just leave, just run,
Speaker 6: and just go.
Speaker 1: There's one story from the convent that really sticks out
Speaker 1: to Kelly. It's on her mistress told over and over
Speaker 1: again as this inspirational tale. A superior walks into a
Speaker 1: chapel of praying sisters and instead of saying anything, she
Speaker 1: writes a message on a chalkboard.
Speaker 6: Please pray for the father of sister Mary whoever, he's
Speaker 6: very ill. And then that's how she found out that
Speaker 6: her father was sick. And then fifteen minutes later, the
Speaker 6: superior came in wipe that off the black board and wrote,
Speaker 6: please pray for the father of sister whoever.
Speaker 2: Rip.
Speaker 6: So that's how she found out how her father.
Speaker 1: Died, and the superior didn't say anything else the end.
Speaker 6: That's the story that just seems needlessly cruel. And she
Speaker 6: said that sister just really trusted Jesus and really trusted
Speaker 6: her superior that much like those are the stories you
Speaker 6: hear when somebody wants to tell you an inspirational story.
Speaker 6: You know that's a wacko for a inspirational story.
Speaker 1: And another story from her mistress. A sister finds out
Speaker 1: her entire family was killed in the Rwandan Civil War.
Speaker 1: After a few tears, she never mentions it again.
Speaker 6: And that has held out this kind of the gold standard,
Speaker 6: that she trusted Jesus so much that she never had
Speaker 6: an emotional expression about it after that. But I think
Speaker 6: the mission is a charity. Like your feelings were just
Speaker 6: supposed to be irrelevant and we're not giving you information.
Speaker 6: There were just things that you pray to get rid of.
Speaker 6: But people have feelings, and the feeling is actually our information,
Speaker 6: and it's just so not compatible with the way humans are.
Speaker 7: I'm really good with kids. It's one of my strengths.
Speaker 1: This is Mary Anderson, not to be confused with Mary Johnson.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of Mary's in this story. Like
Speaker 1: the other Mary, this one worked with kids as part
Speaker 1: of her service.
Speaker 7: Work, and I love them and I connect it with them,
Speaker 7: and I would play with them.
Speaker 1: And she skipped with them, and I was.
Speaker 7: Told that that was wrong. I wasn't conducting myself as
Speaker 7: a proper nun. And surely Marry the Mother of God
Speaker 7: never skipped, And I remember thinking that's rubbish, like skipping
Speaker 7: is joyful and why should I be, you know, having
Speaker 7: to do penance like kidding ourselves or kneeling on hard
Speaker 7: floors or you know, because I was skipping and I
Speaker 7: was just so torn up by those things, and yet
Speaker 7: to be constantly told that, well, you have to not
Speaker 7: trust what you think and field you have to think
Speaker 7: the way we do and what you think is wrong
Speaker 7: and you know, and so I was getting the message
Speaker 7: over and over you cannot trust what you think. Your
Speaker 7: thoughts are not very good because they're not right, you know.
Speaker 1: Not every former MC sister sees detachment as a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Joan Worster says, it's incredibly valuable.
Speaker 8: I think I got a great relationship with God through
Speaker 8: all of this. Even though there was some suffering involved,
Speaker 8: I feel like it was the best experience of my life.
Speaker 8: The main thing was not having anything. That was tremendous
Speaker 8: for me because I have no attachment to anything at
Speaker 8: this point in my life. It taught me so much
Speaker 8: for detachment, even from objects, from objects, from people. I
Speaker 8: always say this to people, and I think it's hard
Speaker 8: for people to understand this. I say, I love people,
Speaker 8: I love my husband, i love my children, but I'm
Speaker 8: not attached. My life journey is my attachment to God totally.
Speaker 8: So while I appreciate and love, I'm just not attached,
Speaker 8: if that.
Speaker 1: Makes sense, I think. So that's such an interesting concept
Speaker 1: for me, and I think I'm probably pretty attached.
Speaker 8: But I can love. The thing about love for me
Speaker 8: is I can love so much more because I'm not attached.
Speaker 8: If I have my husband for as long as I
Speaker 8: have him, if he were to die, my life would
Speaker 8: not change. It would change in what I would have
Speaker 8: to deal with, you know, depression or sadness, but it
Speaker 8: wouldn't change my love for him, you know what I'm saying. So,
Speaker 8: so that way, it's kind of like a for me,
Speaker 8: it's a release of life, but I get to live
Speaker 8: the life.
Speaker 1: It sounds peaceful, it is. Any former sisters we spoke
Speaker 1: to think this forced detachment is crippling. They say it's
Speaker 1: a contradiction to be asked to love and help others
Speaker 1: and also remain emotionally distant. They struggled with this rule
Speaker 1: against friendship or what's called particular friendship.
Speaker 6: Which is like kind of the euphemism for like none
Speaker 6: on non action. But even when people had kind of
Speaker 6: platonic friendships, they'd often send people away because they just
Speaker 6: didn't want people to be connected to each other.
Speaker 1: Kelly says MC's weren't just worried about particular friendships. Appearance
Speaker 1: and demeanor were also scrutinized.
Speaker 6: They have a lot of talk about like how our
Speaker 6: lady was very feminine.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: They say, like, oh, our lady, she was a real lady,
Speaker 6: you know whatever.
Speaker 1: As sisters in Kelly's training class progressed to the next level,
Speaker 1: Kelly says she was held back.
Speaker 6: The specific problem that they said that I had was
Speaker 6: that I had too much self esteem and insufficient docility.
Speaker 6: Even when I managed to say the right things, they
Speaker 6: would say that my body language was like I walked
Speaker 6: like my shoulders were angry as how they said it, which,
Speaker 6: you know, I think that could mean a lot of
Speaker 6: things too, What do you mean by that? Like I
Speaker 6: remember one time she lent me her prayer book and
Speaker 6: it had a little list of the things she was
Speaker 6: praying about, and one of them was me, And she
Speaker 6: said that I was scary, and I was like, nobody
Speaker 6: in my life has ever called me scary, But I
Speaker 6: think that there was something about me that was maybe
Speaker 6: threatening to her. Maybe it was about sexuality. I don't know.
Speaker 1: All Kelly knew for sure was that she was stressed,
Speaker 1: so stressed that she says she got her period for
Speaker 1: four months straight.
Speaker 6: Which I think was my body's way of being like
Speaker 6: get out, get out, you know. And we used like
Speaker 6: non disposable menstrual stuff, right like really, they just handed
Speaker 6: us diapers, you know, like the cloth diapers that we
Speaker 6: folded up and then we had to wash them by hand.
Speaker 6: And so one day we were cleaning the women's shelter
Speaker 6: in Harlem and there was a tampon sitting on top
Speaker 6: of one of the dressers and I was like, I'm
Speaker 6: gonna borrow that, and then I put it in my
Speaker 6: pocket and then I was walking away. I was like,
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna borrow and I'm not giving it back.
Speaker 6: And that was kind of the moment where I was like,
Speaker 6: you know, this is not making me a better person,
Speaker 6: Like I don't know who I am. Maybe you know,
Speaker 6: but I know who I don't want to be, and
Speaker 6: that's a person who steals a tampon from a homeless woman.
Speaker 6: And I don't think I've ever been as stressed as
Speaker 6: I was in that situation.
Speaker 1: She had to walk away. Kelly turned in her.
Speaker 6: Sorry, it's sad because I did see sisters, even sisters
Speaker 6: who seemed like they were pretty happy with the life,
Speaker 6: just being destroyed by this constant need of mistresses and
Speaker 6: superiors to destroy the bonds between people.
Speaker 2: The advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause
Speaker 2: of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can
Speaker 2: make that would be unmistakable.
Speaker 1: In the late nineteen eighties, big changes were underway. The
Speaker 1: world was spinning, the Soviet Union was reforming. President Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan gave a speech in front of the Berlin Wall.
Speaker 2: Mister Gerbashow teared down this wall.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the missionaries of Charity expanded into the Eastern Bloc.
Speaker 1: They opened a mission in Moscow, something unthinkable a few
Speaker 1: years before. Mary Johnson wanted to explore places she'd never been,
Speaker 1: to be part of the mission out in the world.
Speaker 2: I wanted adventures. I wanted to go places and see things.
Speaker 2: And the constraints that had been placed on me had
Speaker 2: perhaps been done so in a loving manner, but they
Speaker 2: were constraints. Nonetheless.
Speaker 1: She lived mostly in Rome. She studied theology, She did
Speaker 1: some clerical work. She sometimes visited a prison or helped
Speaker 1: it at home for expecting mothers. Ninety, she moved up
Speaker 1: the ladder again. Mary became a mistress for nuns nearing
Speaker 1: their final vows, the vows for life. But when she
Speaker 1: saw who was on the list of sisters she'd be
Speaker 1: responsible for, her heart stopped. Niobi.
Speaker 2: Never forget our secret, Never forget that I love you.
Speaker 1: Mary hadn't seen Niobi for three years. Now they'd be
Speaker 1: living under the same roof again, only this time Mary
Speaker 1: would be her mistress.
Speaker 2: That was something I had never envisioned, never imagined that
Speaker 2: Niobe would be someone I would be responsible for. And
Speaker 2: I knew that I was just going to have to
Speaker 2: really make it very very clear to her that our
Speaker 2: relationship could not continue as it had. Okay, this is
Speaker 2: getting a little intense. RACA, I'm gonna go and come
Speaker 2: back in like a minute. Sounds good, Okay.
Speaker 1: Mary had told me before that our interviews affected her
Speaker 1: more than she expected. Old nightmares returned, nightmares about her
Speaker 1: time as an MC, the kind of nightmares where you
Speaker 1: feel trapped. We actually took a break from interviews for
Speaker 1: a few months, and I thought, maybe we need to
Speaker 1: end this interview early.
Speaker 9: Okay, here we go, let's see I did sleep much
Speaker 9: last night.
Speaker 1: How are you doing?
Speaker 2: Oh, it comes in waves. It's kind of intense. It's okay, okay.
Speaker 2: So when Iobi actually arrived at Zenship, she was pretty
Speaker 2: good in the beginning, you know, she kind of sat
Speaker 2: near me at the table a few times, but when
Speaker 2: a new sister came, that was kind of normal, so
Speaker 2: not a big deal. But then one day we're having
Speaker 2: rule class and she always looked very intently at me
Speaker 2: when I was teaching about the rules, especially, and she
Speaker 2: followed me into the office and she shut the door
Speaker 2: behind herself, and she says, what a great rule class.
Speaker 2: And I tell her, it's good to know that you're
Speaker 2: getting something out of the class, and thanks for the encouragement.
Speaker 2: And she says, well, yes, you're a natural. And I
Speaker 2: just want to give you a big hug. And she
Speaker 2: wrapped her arms around me, which had been exactly what
Speaker 2: I wanted a few years before that, but not then,
Speaker 2: because now I was in charge of her preparation for
Speaker 2: her vows, and so I said, no, no, I don't
Speaker 2: think we should be doing this. I appreciate the gesture,
Speaker 2: but you know, no hug. And she held me and
Speaker 2: I just had my arms down at my sides, trying
Speaker 2: to give her the message this is not all right.
Speaker 2: And then I told her with words, you know, we
Speaker 2: just really we can't do this anymore. I am you Attertion, mistress,
Speaker 2: you are attertion. We are going to keep all the rules.
Speaker 2: We can't do this anymore. I told her, sister Niobe,
Speaker 2: we can't do this, and she says, all right, all right,
Speaker 2: I can bear anything, but I can't bear you calling
Speaker 2: me sister, and she left and I thought, well, she's
Speaker 2: going to have to get used to it, because I'm
Speaker 2: calling her sister Niobe from here on out. We have
Speaker 2: to make this boundary.
Speaker 1: That night, Mary hit herself harder with the discipline, and
Speaker 1: in the morning she pulled the spike Jain's extra tight
Speaker 1: around her waist. Mary had never been in a relationship before,
Speaker 1: and navigating boundaries is never easy, especially the first time,
Speaker 1: especially for a nun. Her firm response to Niobe seemed
Speaker 1: to work for a few days. Sister and Niobi gave
Speaker 1: her space, but not for long, she says. One time,
Speaker 1: Niobi shoved her into the office and held her against
Speaker 1: the wall, pressing on her chest. Another time, she followed
Speaker 1: Mary into the dormitory and tried to untie her bodice.
Speaker 1: Mary kicked her in the shin to make her stop, and.
Speaker 2: It started to feel very manipulative. It started to feel
Speaker 2: very abusive. Even though I didn't have the word for
Speaker 2: it at the time, I just knew it wasn't right.
Speaker 2: I just knew it wasn't love, and I knew that
Speaker 2: she wasn't stopping. It just became totally out of control.
Speaker 1: By now, Mary felt like she was pouring all her
Speaker 1: energy into keeping sister Naobi at bay, and she had
Speaker 1: twenty seven other sisters to manage. She needed to take
Speaker 1: care of all of them.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, this part of me that
Speaker 2: wanted to be loved, but this didn't feel like love,
Speaker 2: and it was. It was awful. It was so confusing,
Speaker 2: it was horrible.
Speaker 1: How would you characterize it now, you said abusive? Do
Speaker 1: you feel like she was assaulting you?
Speaker 2: I do feel it's abusive. I do feel it's an assault.
Speaker 2: But clearly I was not giving consent. I made that
Speaker 2: really clear, over and over and over and over again,
Speaker 2: and she just wasn't hearing any of it. Finally to
Speaker 2: the point where she kind of wore me down.
Speaker 5: Jellous sanctist.
Speaker 10: Right according for the up.
Speaker 2: And I have.
Speaker 4: Reached my best to me sure.
Speaker 1: At first, Chavey thinks she's found the soup kitchen where
Speaker 1: Niobi works. Turns out she hasn't. She's in a residential neighborhood,
Speaker 1: clearly not the right spot, so she starts asking around, Well, I'm.
Speaker 4: Looking for the soup kitchen.
Speaker 2: Oh, the soup kitchen.
Speaker 4: I was told that this is the address.
Speaker 1: Here's why we're going to such links to deliver this letter.
Speaker 1: These are Mary's memories as she expressed them to us.
Speaker 1: With intimate personal experiences like this, especially in an insular
Speaker 1: religious community, it's hard to substantiate all the details. I'm
Speaker 1: also aware of the power dynamic between Mary and Niobi.
Speaker 1: Mary became Niobe's mistress. Mary was in charge, and right
Speaker 1: now we only have her version of events. So I
Speaker 1: want to reach Niobe. When I spoke with her on
Speaker 1: the phone, she ended the conversation before I could explain
Speaker 1: everything about the story. I want to get her as
Speaker 1: much information as possible to give her a chance to
Speaker 1: share her experience.
Speaker 10: The municipal office is on my right or.
Speaker 1: Yes, please, thankfully. Chavvy randomly meets someone in the wrong neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Who knows where to go?
Speaker 10: And she said, to ask anybody where are the mothers
Speaker 10: giving free food?
Speaker 4: And they will tell you.
Speaker 2: So off I go.
Speaker 9: How are you.
Speaker 8: So you're here every day on Sunday.
Speaker 1: Eventually Chavvy finds the soup kitchen.
Speaker 5: So I have a letter for her.
Speaker 10: We will give her, but you know, they've asked me
Speaker 10: to make sure she gets it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, sure, we will give sure.
Speaker 7: No, I don't.
Speaker 10: It's not that I don't trust you, of course, but
Speaker 10: I mean they've asked me to make sure that her
Speaker 10: name is Erica and they are in America.
Speaker 1: Chevy speaks with the sister for quite a while. She
Speaker 1: asks if she can speak with Niobi directly.
Speaker 4: She said she doesn't want to talk to anybody.
Speaker 1: Finally, Chavvy hands over the letter.
Speaker 10: But nobody else will read this letter because it's personal.
Speaker 4: No, no, make our phone number.
Speaker 10: Yeah, we just need confirmation.
Speaker 4: And she has received it, and whatever she chooses to
Speaker 4: do is up to walk. Thank you God, thank you bye,
Speaker 4: thank you bye.
Speaker 1: That's the last we've heard. We don't know for sure
Speaker 1: whether Niobi was given the letter. We haven't heard from her.
Speaker 1: As Mary tells the story, she was worn down, exhausted
Speaker 1: by the secret, and they relentless back and forth Naobe's pressure.
Speaker 1: She wanted it to stop. And then Mary says, Naobi
Speaker 1: approached her with a proposition, just one night together.
Speaker 2: She was going on and on about how she wanted
Speaker 2: just one night to make me feel really good, and
Speaker 2: she promised that she would stop after that night. I
Speaker 2: wanted that more than anything. I wanted her to stop.
Speaker 2: I wanted her to stop.
Speaker 1: So what ended up happening.
Speaker 2: I went to her one night and I said, okay,
Speaker 2: this is the night.
Speaker 1: After the sisters went to bed, Mary left her cot
Speaker 1: and crept to where Naobi slept. She touched Niobe's shoulder
Speaker 1: and whispered, tonight. I wanted tonight. She went upstairs and
Speaker 1: waited in a small room that wasn't being used. Then
Speaker 1: sister Niobi arrived. They lay on the bed, Niobi on
Speaker 1: top of Mary, face to face. Her weight was comforting,
Speaker 1: so were Niobe's lips on Mary's forehead, then her cheeks
Speaker 1: and her lips. I love you, Niobi whispered to Mary.
Speaker 1: I want you, I.
Speaker 2: Need you, and she may me feel things I had
Speaker 2: never felt before. She it was my first experience of
Speaker 2: that sort of sexual relationship. And it did feel really good,
Speaker 2: of course it did. It was like, if this is
Speaker 2: a human love, how much bigger must God's love be?
Speaker 2: But the biggest thought I was having was okay, so
Speaker 2: now it's going to be over.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't over, Mary says, and I will be
Speaker 1: ignored their agreement. She didn't staff, not at all.
Speaker 2: She wanted more, and she's like, you must want more
Speaker 2: to of course you want more, And of course part
Speaker 2: of me did want more, but part of me didn't.
Speaker 2: And just again this whole confusion, because what happens when
Speaker 2: a human being who hasn't felt loved, who has very
Speaker 2: little idea of her sexuality, suddenly starts to discover those things.
Speaker 2: Of Course you want to know more, you want to
Speaker 2: understand what this is all about. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: the same human being who's beginning to discover these new
Speaker 2: facets of life has vows which say those are sinful
Speaker 2: and you've given that up. And that's okay for other people,
Speaker 2: but it's not okay for you. You are a nun.
Speaker 2: Come on now, wake up.
Speaker 1: Mary says. She didn't know what to do. Niobe wouldn't
Speaker 1: leave her alone. Now she couldn't go to the superior
Speaker 1: because she'd have to admit she broke her rows. She
Speaker 1: didn't see it way out. One day, her superior approached her.
Speaker 1: She told Mary she needed to share a story and
Speaker 1: confidence it had happened at a general chapter meeting, the
Speaker 1: meeting for mc leadership. Mary Superior said that the sisters
Speaker 1: were all discussing the matters of the day, and at
Speaker 1: one point one of them read an anonymous letter aloud.
Speaker 2: The sister who wrote this letter claimed that there was
Speaker 2: another sister who had forced herself on her, followed her around,
Speaker 2: had touched her in ways she didn't want to be touched,
Speaker 2: wouldn't listen to know.
Speaker 1: Immediately, Mary thought of her own experience.
Speaker 2: She said that this sister had done this from the
Speaker 2: time she was a novice before she took her first vows,
Speaker 2: that she found sisters in the Novisiat who were more
Speaker 2: senior than her, and she was doing similar things.
Speaker 1: Finally, the Superior revealed that the letter was about Niobe.
Speaker 1: She thought since Mary was Niobe's mistress, she should know.
Speaker 2: And after this letter was read, Mother stood up.
Speaker 1: And Mother Teresa was more angry than the Superior had
Speaker 1: ever seen her. Mary assumed she was angry at Niobe.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, Mother wasn't upset that the sister was
Speaker 2: behaving this way. Mother was upset that anyone had written it,
Speaker 2: and then even that it had been read out loud
Speaker 2: at the chapter. What mattered to Mother was that someone's
Speaker 2: reputation had been destroyed, and that was kind of devastating
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: Mary was angry, She thought, no wonder, Niobi, he's getting transferred.
Speaker 1: No wonder. Sister told us not to ask about the
Speaker 1: trouble Niobi had at her last convent. And when Mary
Speaker 1: learned who else Naobi targeted, she realized the sisters resembled her,
Speaker 1: joined at a young age, not likely to have had
Speaker 1: sexual experiences, more senior in the congregation, so if they
Speaker 1: were found out, Naobi wouldn't be blamed.
Speaker 2: And sure enough, Mother said, it can't be this sister's fault,
Speaker 2: because the sister who is more senior, she is the
Speaker 2: one who should have the responsibility. She should know better,
Speaker 2: she should say no. And then, of course, if a
Speaker 2: senior sister says no, the junior sister will always obey that.
Speaker 2: And of course Naobe wasn't like that at all. And
Speaker 2: though Niobe was my junior, and at that point was
Speaker 2: even under me. She he was ten years older than
Speaker 2: I was and far more experienced in so many ways.
Speaker 1: The more Mary thought about it, the more upset she got.
Speaker 1: Why had no one stopped her? How could superiors look
Speaker 1: the other way? How could Naobi have been allowed to
Speaker 1: take her first vows? Was it anyone watching?
Speaker 2: I think there was definitely a trend in the missionaries
Speaker 2: of charity, and actually in the Catholic Church as a whole,
Speaker 2: of not paying attention to problems, denying problems, not wanting
Speaker 2: to see that they're there, wanting to blame them on
Speaker 2: an individual's weakness, and therefore saying, well, we're all weak,
Speaker 2: and so let's be forgiving. Let's be merciful. And of
Speaker 2: course mercy and love and forgiveness are the things that
Speaker 2: can change people. Love is one of the most powerful things.
Speaker 2: So yes, we should love. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: there is a responsibility when you admit someone into a community,
Speaker 2: and the responsibility is not just to that person, but
Speaker 2: you have to look at how that person is affecting
Speaker 2: the entire community.
Speaker 1: What Mary did next was risky, but she says she
Speaker 1: had to stop Niobe from harming anyone else. She wrote
Speaker 1: to Mother Teresa and put her vocation on the line.
Speaker 1: She told her they'd broken the vow of chastity, that
Speaker 1: she firmly believed Niobe shouldn't take her final vows. After
Speaker 1: Mary sent the letter, a sister flew from Germany to
Speaker 1: Rome for the sole purpose of talking to Mary. It
Speaker 1: was one of the most influential sisters in the order,
Speaker 1: known for being strict. She sat at Mother Teresa's desk
Speaker 1: and scolded Mary for breaking her vows, for not setting
Speaker 1: a good example. Mary agreed to every point. She said
Speaker 1: she was sorry, sister. The other responded, I'm sure God
Speaker 1: forgives you. Jesus forgave even Mary Magdalene. In the end,
Speaker 1: nothing changed. Mary kept her position, Naobi took her vows.
Speaker 1: Mary never felt so powerless. After a few months, Mary
Speaker 1: couldn't take the pressure of the convent anymore. When a
Speaker 1: sister in our house needed to go to the hospital,
Speaker 1: Mary volunteered to take her. She realized this was her chance.
Speaker 2: This little plan was forming in the back of my head.
Speaker 1: The two of them got into a car with a
Speaker 1: driver and they drove toward the coast where the hospital was.
Speaker 2: And there were palm trees, and there was the sky
Speaker 2: and you could see the water off in the distance,
Speaker 2: and it was like a breath of freedom. It was
Speaker 2: like a way to breathe again. And I just wanted
Speaker 2: more and more of that air, that freedom, that life,
Speaker 2: that light.
Speaker 1: When the sister went in for her appointment, Mary sat
Speaker 1: in the waiting room and reviewed her plan. She knew
Speaker 1: the facility, She tried to remember where the Lost and
Speaker 1: Found was. That's where she'd find normal clothes. She would
Speaker 1: change out of her sorry then make her way to
Speaker 1: one of the empty beach houses nearby. She would escape.
Speaker 2: I thought, this is my chance. I'd just have to
Speaker 2: take it.
Speaker 1: But just then the doctor and sister reappeared. The checkup
Speaker 1: was already over. Soon Mary was in the car heading
Speaker 1: back to the convent. After that day, she often gazed
Speaker 1: out the convent window. She stared at the back corner
Speaker 1: of the garden. She imagined digging a hole, crawling in
Speaker 1: and covering herself with dirt. She wrote in her notebook, Trapped, Trapped, Trapped.
Speaker 1: The turning is written by Aileen lance Lester and me.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Allen lance Lester and Emily Foreman. Our
Speaker 1: editor is Rob Rosenthal. Andrea Asoige is our digital producer
Speaker 1: in fact checking by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Chavi Setch, Dave, Amy Gaines, Sarah Olander, Maraud Frishkoff, Katherine Joyce,
Speaker 1: Bethan Macaluso, Travis Dunlap, and consulting producer Mary Johnson. Her
Speaker 1: memoir Unquenchable Thirst provided inspiration for this series. Our executive
Speaker 1: producers are Jessica Alpert and John Parati from Rococo Punch
Speaker 1: and Katrina Norville from iHeartRadio. Our theme music is by
Speaker 1: Matt Reid. For photos and more details on the series,
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch. You can reach
Speaker 1: out via email to the Turning at Rococo punch dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm Erica Lance. Thanks for listening.