Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, I want to let you know that we
Speaker 1: talk about suicide in this episode. There are some links
Speaker 1: to resources in the episode description if you need them.
Speaker 2: I loved everything about my life, and then I joined
Speaker 2: this convent to follow God, thinking in my mind that
Speaker 2: everyone was gonna love everyone and it was gonna be
Speaker 2: double what I had at home, and it was completely different.
Speaker 2: I said, meet me up on the third floor, and
Speaker 2: then she came up and I just was crying and saying,
Speaker 2: I just I can't do this anymore. So I sent
Speaker 2: her can you. I don't know how to get out,
Speaker 2: like how do I get out.
Speaker 1: From a cocoa punch? And iHeartRadio. This is the Turning.
Speaker 1: I'm Erica Lance, Part six, the third Floor.
Speaker 3: I'm Sue Weber. Do you want like that little brief
Speaker 3: bio blah blah or just the whole bio? Okay? So
Speaker 3: I'm Sue Weber and who are you? I'm Joan Worcester
Speaker 3: And how do you two know each other? We're sisters.
Speaker 1: So let me clarify. Joan and Sue are former sisters
Speaker 1: with the Missionaries of Charity, but they're also sisters, like
Speaker 1: actual real life sisters.
Speaker 3: And we're the same age for thirteen days.
Speaker 1: Joan and Sue live in Pennsylvania. They huddle over a
Speaker 1: computer at Jones's house to video chat with me, squeezing
Speaker 1: together so they can both fit in the frame.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm far more stubborn than you are. Wouldn't you say, Oh,
Speaker 3: you're pretty star. We're all stubborn. It's a family trade
Speaker 3: in a posit way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't take a lot of things personally at all.
Speaker 3: I'm more sensitive. Yeah, she's much more sensitive. You're super
Speaker 3: protective too for people who get hurt.
Speaker 2: I seek for justice a lot. That's a commonality, and
Speaker 2: I think that has to do with the convent. But
Speaker 2: I've come to seek justice and truth in everything that
Speaker 2: I do and say.
Speaker 1: Joan, the younger sister, has a certain gentleness. Sometimes she
Speaker 1: goes for a while without saying anything. She just listens.
Speaker 1: Joan says her intimate relationship with God drives everything she does.
Speaker 2: I was the type of person that was always trying
Speaker 2: to please God, and then I realize that he loves
Speaker 2: us unconditionally, and he loves us no matter where we
Speaker 2: are in life.
Speaker 1: Sue, the older sister, is bold and open, short haircut,
Speaker 1: big personality. Says it like it is.
Speaker 3: I'm out there, I'm like it up for anything.
Speaker 1: Joan and Sue both joined the MCS andi. Like every sister,
Speaker 1: they followed the vow of obedience. The vow commits sisters
Speaker 1: to the power structure in the MCS You vow to
Speaker 1: obey God. By obeying your superior promptly and without question,
Speaker 1: you become a pencil in God's hand, as Mother Teresa said,
Speaker 1: or as a former sister put it, a tool without
Speaker 1: will or opinion of your own. That didn't work for
Speaker 1: Sue and Joan. Their story shows how power works in
Speaker 1: the order who has power, what happens as a result,
Speaker 1: and what happens when you push back on it. Sue
Speaker 1: would grapple with this from above as a superior Joan
Speaker 1: from below. Joan and Sue grew up in the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a small city in the middle
Speaker 1: of Amish Country. They went to Catholic school. At the time, Joan,
Speaker 1: the younger sister, toyed with the idea of going to
Speaker 1: college on a track scholarship. But she told me, in
Speaker 1: my soul until I die, I know I was meant
Speaker 1: to be a nun. So in nineteen eighty going to
Speaker 1: Franciscan Order of Nuns. She was nineteen years old, but
Speaker 1: something was missing. The Franciscans she was with took a
Speaker 1: vow of poverty, but she didn't feel they took it
Speaker 1: far enough. Life was too comfortable. And then she learned
Speaker 1: more about Mother Teresa.
Speaker 2: I started reading some books about her and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: my word, she has it.
Speaker 1: While Joan was thinking about switching to the Missionaries of Charity,
Speaker 1: Sue beat her to it. She joined the MCS herself.
Speaker 1: Sue was twenty and she says the life suited her,
Speaker 1: especially helping the poor. When I asked her to tell
Speaker 1: me about some of the moments she found beautiful, she
Speaker 1: didn't know where to start.
Speaker 3: Thousands, literally, there are thousands of incredible, incredible beauty working
Speaker 3: among the poor, potentially making a difference in their lives.
Speaker 1: Six months in, Sue got some news. Her mistress told
Speaker 1: her that Joan was joining the MCS. She was leaving
Speaker 1: the Franciscans and coming to the same convent as Sue.
Speaker 1: The mistress cautioned Sue, remember no preferential love, even for family.
Speaker 1: When Joan joined, she learned the MCS had a different
Speaker 1: approach for starters, no psychological test. The Franciscans required aspiring
Speaker 1: nuns to take one.
Speaker 2: I actually think it's super important because I think what
Speaker 2: happens is you're getting women who have mental issues, right.
Speaker 2: And mother would just say, just love the sisters no
Speaker 2: matter what. But we had to live with.
Speaker 1: Them daily life was different too. The MCS were much
Speaker 1: more regimented, and she noticed that the MCS didn't hug
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: The Franciscans she'd been with hugged all the time.
Speaker 2: Nobody looks at anybody, nobody talks to anybody. It's grand silence.
Speaker 1: And Joan felt the MCS did poverty right.
Speaker 2: The poverty was, in my estimation, sensational, like everything we
Speaker 2: owned fit in a bucket. I love the simplicity.
Speaker 1: Since Joan was new, it was nice to see a
Speaker 1: familiar face.
Speaker 2: But my sister was rooted into the Missionaries of Charity
Speaker 2: way of life, right, So when there was complete silence,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd walk by her and kind of wink
Speaker 2: and do the things that I would do because I
Speaker 2: was just beginning. I'd nod or smile, and you know,
Speaker 2: she did do that when it was just her and I.
Speaker 3: But when she was in the group.
Speaker 2: She would pass me and not look at me, and
Speaker 2: I'd be like.
Speaker 3: Oh, because I was following the rules.
Speaker 2: She was a good nun.
Speaker 3: Oh, no, justin in the beginning.
Speaker 1: A year later, though, when they'd both be in a
Speaker 1: convent in San Francisco, they'd be more flexible.
Speaker 3: And then the vishit we did sneak off a lot
Speaker 3: of times on the really third floor. On the third floor, well,
Speaker 3: my mom would send care packages, like of cookies, and
Speaker 3: especially around the holidays.
Speaker 1: They had to turn any packages over to the superior.
Speaker 1: From there it was usually given to the poor or
Speaker 1: shared with the whole convent. But sometimes Sue would say
Speaker 1: to herself.
Speaker 3: Oh, these are my favorites, these are Joan's favorites. So
Speaker 3: then I would like hide them and then I would
Speaker 3: see Joan in the I'd be like, meet me up
Speaker 3: on the third floor. And then we would sit up
Speaker 3: on these stacks of mattresses and eat the cookies.
Speaker 2: And enjoyed every moment, be worth any penance that.
Speaker 3: We never got caught. No we didn't. We're good.
Speaker 5: You guys have both referred to penance, and I was
Speaker 5: just wondering, when you say penance, are you thinking of
Speaker 5: the discipline. Change that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: You can go first, good, Okay, So I only share
Speaker 3: with very intimate people, which is like my fellow sisters
Speaker 3: who left. I don't know if Mom even knows that she.
Speaker 2: I think she does.
Speaker 3: She does, Okay, well she saw you change. It's a question,
Speaker 3: she's true.
Speaker 2: Questions.
Speaker 3: So I didn't the bracelet. But here's the thing, and
Speaker 3: I will make my full confession right here, right now,
Speaker 3: that I was not faithful to my penances because I
Speaker 3: thought they were It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Joan's group of aspirants learned about the discipline a few
Speaker 1: months in.
Speaker 2: So then they said, you can go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2: But I go into this stall and I just I
Speaker 2: couldn't do it. And I heard the sister next to me,
Speaker 2: who was totally independences, and she was beating herself. I
Speaker 2: could hear her. I'm thinking, dear God, i'd be yelling ow,
Speaker 2: you know, And I thought, okay, I gotta do something
Speaker 2: because they're probably listening to me as I'm listening to them.
Speaker 2: So I hit the sides of the walls of the toilet,
Speaker 2: and I was just going, you know, hitting the sides
Speaker 2: instead of hitting myself because I couldn't do it, and
Speaker 2: then gradually I began to do it, and I then
Speaker 2: didn't have problems with it, because I do believe that
Speaker 2: if you do sacrifice yourself, I can gain grace with
Speaker 2: myself and I can also help someone else's soul. I
Speaker 2: believe that to this day.
Speaker 3: I believe that.
Speaker 1: Soon Joan took the discipline every day. Then she got
Speaker 1: the spiked arm chain, which she wore during mass.
Speaker 2: So I put it on, and you're supposed to fold
Speaker 2: your hands because then it digs into your arm, and
Speaker 2: I felt Christ. I felt him as I've never felt
Speaker 2: I mean, I felt him.
Speaker 3: I think the injustice came when rules were different for
Speaker 3: different people. So for example, one of the rules was
Speaker 3: you can't go home because we have to live a
Speaker 3: life of poverty. But then a regional superior who really
Speaker 3: liked another sister, she got to go home for her
Speaker 3: parents funeral. Everybody's at the mercy of whoever has power.
Speaker 2: They become the voice of God for you. That's all
Speaker 2: they keep saying. I'm the voice of God for you
Speaker 2: at this moment, under your valive obedience, right, no matter
Speaker 2: what it is, and they use God as the weapon.
Speaker 1: Joan felt that weapon, and this is where her story
Speaker 1: diverged from sus in New York.
Speaker 2: I got something in my stomach where I was really,
Speaker 2: really sick.
Speaker 1: She was in so much pain she had to crawl
Speaker 1: down the stairs. Her mistress didn't offer support.
Speaker 2: I would go to her and said, I'm really sick,
Speaker 2: and she would say, just you know, give it to Jesus,
Speaker 2: offer it up, you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: One day, a volunteer saw Joan and the condition she
Speaker 1: was in.
Speaker 2: And she said, this little child needs to go to
Speaker 2: the doctor.
Speaker 1: But Joan's mistress said no, it was the superior's decision
Speaker 1: to make and the superior was away.
Speaker 2: So I just continued on every day crawling down the stairs.
Speaker 2: She'd maybe come down to church no matter what, whether
Speaker 2: I was sick or not, I had to come in
Speaker 2: to try to work, which I couldn't.
Speaker 1: When the volunteer came back, she decided to take charge.
Speaker 2: She said, sister, go get your shoes. You're going to die.
Speaker 2: You have to go.
Speaker 1: Joan found out she had pancreatitis. Left untreated, it can
Speaker 1: be really serious.
Speaker 2: So that's how it started.
Speaker 1: Joan stayed in the hospital for a week. When she
Speaker 1: returned to the convent, she says something change with her mistress.
Speaker 1: She targeted Joan, and she was relentless. First she accused
Speaker 1: Joan of being too friendly with a man, a seminarian
Speaker 1: who had prayed with her while she was in the hospital.
Speaker 1: Then of trying to seduce the men coming into the
Speaker 1: soup kitchen for meals.
Speaker 2: I was like shocked. I was shocked that she was
Speaker 2: saying it. I'd never even thought it. I'm not going
Speaker 2: after anyone. So she accused me of that and so
Speaker 2: much more.
Speaker 1: Joan says it was impossible to please her, Like the
Speaker 1: time her mistress told her to teach English to some
Speaker 1: sistress from South America. Joan didn't know any Spanish. She says.
Speaker 1: She did her best to teach them, but every time
Speaker 1: one of the sisters made a mistake in English, the
Speaker 1: mistress made Joan do penance.
Speaker 2: So I used to tell them to not speak. I said,
Speaker 2: can you please not just speak and save me from
Speaker 2: my penances.
Speaker 1: Sometimes her mistress made her kneel in silence beside the
Speaker 1: refectory table while everyone else ate and talked. These humiliations,
Speaker 1: the accusations, the little dig they all piled up.
Speaker 2: She would tell me I wasn't holy, tell me I
Speaker 2: was prideful. Tell me that Jesus knows you're a fake
Speaker 2: and a phony, and all these kinds of things. She
Speaker 2: would say to me, right, So.
Speaker 1: That must have been really hard to hear.
Speaker 2: It was very hard.
Speaker 1: Joan began to question her vocation. Is this really what
Speaker 1: God wanted for her? After six months, she was sent
Speaker 1: to a convent in Chicago for postulancy with a new mistress.
Speaker 2: I've thought I died and went to heaven. She was wonderful, beautiful.
Speaker 1: Free from the belittling mistress in New York, Joe could
Speaker 1: focus on the parts of religious life that fueled her
Speaker 1: visiting shut ins, working at the soup kitchens and shelters.
Speaker 1: But then words spread that the mistress in New York
Speaker 1: might be transferred to Chicago. Panic set in.
Speaker 2: One sister in my group she took an iron and
Speaker 2: burnt her leg as penance.
Speaker 1: Penance so the mistress wouldn't be assigned to Chicago.
Speaker 2: That's how much people did not like her.
Speaker 1: But the penance was in vain. The mistress transferred to Chicago,
Speaker 1: and Joan says she started right in again.
Speaker 2: She would call me in and she would scream at
Speaker 2: me and tell me that I'm very irresponsible, and she
Speaker 2: would yell at me and say, you're stupid.
Speaker 1: There were times when Joan had no idea what she'd
Speaker 1: done wrong. She cried in the chapel and prayed, why.
Speaker 2: Is this happening? Why are you allowing this to happen
Speaker 2: to me? I only wanted to come and serve you.
Speaker 2: I was angry and hurt and sad, and I was
Speaker 2: all of those.
Speaker 1: Finally, Joan spoke with her superior, the nun above her mistress.
Speaker 1: She tried to explain it all, but the superior told
Speaker 1: Joan to forgive her mistress.
Speaker 2: She said, can you try and love her? I said, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll try.
Speaker 1: But there was only so much Joan could take. She
Speaker 1: was at a breaking point, so she turned to the
Speaker 1: one person she thought could change things, Mother Teresa. When
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa visited, Joan had a one on one meeting
Speaker 1: with her. She says. She told Mother Teresa everything that
Speaker 1: happened with her mistress.
Speaker 2: And I was crying and sobbing, and I said, I
Speaker 2: don't I don't think Jesus wants to hear. Mother. I
Speaker 2: don't know what to do, And she said, Sister Maria
Speaker 2: Fatima be only all for Jesus. And of course in
Speaker 2: my head, I'm thinking, really, that's all you got. That's
Speaker 2: what you're going to tell me. You're not going to
Speaker 2: take this evil woman away from me. You're not going
Speaker 2: to stop this abuse. You're not going to do anything
Speaker 2: about it. You're just going to let me continue to suffer.
Speaker 2: That's how I say no. I was thinking I'd say
Speaker 2: a word. It's mother, Teresa. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I say a word. That's the difference between me and
Speaker 2: my sister. My sister would have told her. I would not.
Speaker 3: I just skip quiet.
Speaker 2: I just accepted it.
Speaker 1: By now, Joan had been in the order for a year,
Speaker 1: it was time to become a novice, which for her
Speaker 1: meant to transfer to San Francisco, the same convent as Sue.
Speaker 1: Before she left, she had a meeting with her mistress.
Speaker 2: And she said, I know that I've been very very
Speaker 2: hard on you. I wanted to break your spirit. I
Speaker 2: wanted you to become humble because I know you're going
Speaker 2: to be something great in this community. And I said
Speaker 2: to her, and I'm going to tell you something. You
Speaker 2: as a mistress have the power to make or break
Speaker 2: a vocation, and you have broken mine and.
Speaker 1: You live with that. In California, Sue had no idea
Speaker 1: what her younger sister was going through. Even now that
Speaker 1: they were in the same convent, they couldn't really talk
Speaker 1: about it. Joan hung on, but she was fragile. And
Speaker 1: then she got a package from her mom. It was
Speaker 1: full of family photos.
Speaker 2: Pictures of our family reunion. And I think because I
Speaker 2: was struggling so much there at that moment, that when
Speaker 2: she sent those pictures, it was a trigger for me.
Speaker 1: So that day Joan found her big sister and told
Speaker 1: her to go to their spot.
Speaker 2: I said, meet me up on the third floor. And
Speaker 2: then she came up and I just was crying and saying,
Speaker 2: I just I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 3: I know me too, because we're both going to be
Speaker 3: crying right here.
Speaker 2: And so I said to her, can you I don't
Speaker 2: know how to get out, Like, how do I get out?
Speaker 3: You could tell that she was suffering, like you could
Speaker 3: just physically tell she was suffering, and I was super
Speaker 3: clear if she stayed, it would have been so massively unhealthy.
Speaker 2: And she said, the only way you can get out
Speaker 2: is if you say that you can't live the celibate life,
Speaker 2: because every other way they would talk you into staying.
Speaker 2: So I went down to the sister and I said,
Speaker 2: I can't live the celibate life, like every time I
Speaker 2: go on a tram car look at guys.
Speaker 3: It was all lies. It wasn't true.
Speaker 2: But I told her that, and she said, if you
Speaker 2: would have said anything else, I would have asked you
Speaker 2: to stay. But because you said you can't live the
Speaker 2: celibate life, I understand that that's a gift from God.
Speaker 2: And from there it was kind of quick, like call
Speaker 2: your parents and I said to meet me and that
Speaker 2: I was getting on this flight. And then it was
Speaker 2: all like kinda quietly done, like hush, hush, go down
Speaker 2: and get clothing. At this time, I was super skinny
Speaker 2: and kind of sickly looking, but I put clothing on,
Speaker 2: and I still felt that I was called.
Speaker 3: She truly felt called. And then there was no healthy
Speaker 3: soil for that call to grow.
Speaker 2: The saddest part for me was that my soul didn't
Speaker 2: want to leave because I loved the work and I
Speaker 2: loved the prayer. I loved the whole life. But mentally
Speaker 2: I was losing jone. And then I went into the
Speaker 2: chapel and my name was sister Maria Fatima, and everybody
Speaker 2: there was singing this Our Lady of Fatima's song, and
Speaker 2: I was kneeling and I was crying. It was like
Speaker 2: I was having an out of body experience. When I
Speaker 2: walked out the door, I left my soul in the chapel.
Speaker 2: The very depth of my soul was still there because
Speaker 2: I didn't really want to go, but my body was
Speaker 2: taking me out.
Speaker 3: And it was so painful to watch. And then for
Speaker 3: me the fear of like is that going to happen
Speaker 3: to me?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Am I going to lose myself?
Speaker 1: Even though Joan left, Sue stayed. She progressed through the
Speaker 1: ranks of the order, took her first vows, took her
Speaker 1: final vows, She became a superior, and she stayed in
Speaker 1: the MC's for over a decade, working all over the
Speaker 1: country in women's shelters and soup kitchens. Sue says her
Speaker 1: outspoken nature helped and she knew how to navigate the system,
Speaker 1: Like the time Mother Teresa visited the EMC house in
Speaker 1: Baton Rouge, where Sue was running a summer camp.
Speaker 3: She'd be like, how's it going, And I basically lied,
Speaker 3: I basically said, oh, it's just really hard because I
Speaker 3: knew she went transfer me. Wow. But if I would
Speaker 3: have went in and said, oh I love it here,
Speaker 3: and I probably would have got transferred.
Speaker 5: You kind of learned the code to continue doing what
Speaker 5: you wanted, because I've definitely heard from other people, you know,
Speaker 5: expressing a lot of enthusiasm for something and then getting
Speaker 5: pulled off to that job, like, oh, she's enjoying that
Speaker 5: too much.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that happened a lot. And I'm super
Speaker 3: intuitive in that way, so as soon as I know
Speaker 3: the code, I'm in.
Speaker 1: Sue had been an EMC for about ten years. When
Speaker 1: she became a superior, she was transferred to the MC
Speaker 1: eight's hospice in San Francisco. It was a three story
Speaker 1: wooden house. The sisters lived on the first floor.
Speaker 3: So when I first got there, there were six of
Speaker 3: us total, and there were three that I would say
Speaker 3: could function and carry out duties well, and there were
Speaker 3: three that were really struggling.
Speaker 1: First, she had to learn to manage the house with
Speaker 1: no training. So you kind of go in blind.
Speaker 3: You don't kind of go in blind. You go in blind.
Speaker 3: Just pray and you'll get the grace to do what
Speaker 3: needs to be done.
Speaker 1: So she relied on her intuition. In the hospice, it
Speaker 1: was rewarding to care for these men with aides who
Speaker 1: were dying.
Speaker 3: Most of these men were rejected from their families. Like
Speaker 3: when we tried to reach their families, they didn't want
Speaker 3: anything to do with it. I mean that was the
Speaker 3: early nineties. The stigma was still there. This one young man, Lamont,
Speaker 3: and he was young, beautiful, funny. We contacted his family.
Speaker 3: I mean at this time, he couldn't get up, he
Speaker 3: couldn't sit up. I mean, he was completely bedridden. And
Speaker 3: so I said to him, hey, I have a surprise
Speaker 3: for you. Said what First, I just brought his mother
Speaker 3: and he just burst into tears, and she burst into tears,
Speaker 3: and then she came over and held him almost like
Speaker 3: a child again. I got underneath him and held him
Speaker 3: and just kept kissing him and telling him how much
Speaker 3: she loved him. And oh, he sobbed, sobbed, sobbed, sobbed.
Speaker 3: And then the siblings came in and they were a
Speaker 3: very exuberant family, and so you would just hear him
Speaker 3: laughing and they would sing, and then for like three
Speaker 3: days it was just like party time. It was so sweet.
Speaker 3: The mom had put an eight track tape. We had
Speaker 3: a little tape recorder thing, and she put the eight
Speaker 3: track tape in and hit the button. This voice and
Speaker 3: song was well. It gave me chills, and I said
Speaker 3: to her, that is so beautiful, and she goes, that's Lamont.
Speaker 3: He had an exquisite voice, and then he passed away
Speaker 3: like like a day after that.
Speaker 1: As a superior, Sue is now technically the direct voice
Speaker 1: of God because she never thought of it that way.
Speaker 1: Now she could make her own rules, She could eat
Speaker 1: what she wanted, even for relationships outside the convent. Having
Speaker 1: power for the first time in years let her to
Speaker 1: act in ways she didn't expect.
Speaker 3: When you are in an organization that suppresses the human
Speaker 3: spirit in the ways that it had done, you always think,
Speaker 3: you know, if I was superior, I would never act
Speaker 3: like that. I would be kind, I would listen. And
Speaker 3: what you realized is the second you became superior, you
Speaker 3: had a lot of freedom and power that was suppressed
Speaker 3: for many, many years.
Speaker 1: One time a nun under Sue's supervision told her she
Speaker 1: was sick.
Speaker 3: She would say, I can't do X whatever, But I
Speaker 3: remember going, yes, you can. You're not that sick, and
Speaker 3: I had the power to make her do those things.
Speaker 1: One night, while the sisters slept, Sue snuck out to
Speaker 1: the chapel, just sat alone in the quiet.
Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, there was this moment of
Speaker 3: my God, you are being exactly you were doing and
Speaker 3: being exactly the things you said you weren't going to
Speaker 3: be or do. What is wrong with you? You know
Speaker 3: you're wielding power, the whole infamous absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Speaker 1: That you've had absolute power.
Speaker 3: In that microcosmo absolutely, and then I shifted completely.
Speaker 1: Sue decided to change her whole approach. She'd listen, not
Speaker 1: reprimand not humiliate. She'd start with kindness. But she was
Speaker 1: about to learn that her absolute power wasn't really absolute.
Speaker 1: One day, Sue got a call from Mother Teresa about
Speaker 1: a tree answer A knew Nune was coming to work
Speaker 1: at the hospice.
Speaker 3: And she said, I'm sending you sister so and so.
Speaker 3: She's a gift from Jesus and you just need to
Speaker 3: love her. I mean the standing joke as superiorors, where
Speaker 3: if you get a phone call from Mother or a
Speaker 3: regional superior and they say, oh, we have a gift
Speaker 3: for you we're going to send a sister to your house.
Speaker 3: That was a big red flag because that was like, oh,
Speaker 3: we're getting somebody who's they're struggling somewhere else and they're
Speaker 3: moving them. So it was a standing joke. We're like, eh,
Speaker 3: you could just keep the gift. So this sister comes in.
Speaker 3: Now we're in a wooden building with non ambulatory patients
Speaker 3: on the second floor, no elevators, no nothing, like if
Speaker 3: there's a fire, you have to carry them down the
Speaker 3: stairs and out the door. Okay. I think it was
Speaker 3: like day three and everybody's in bed and we all
Speaker 3: sleep in a common dormitory.
Speaker 1: And Sue wakes up. She smells something, maybe smoke, so
Speaker 1: she hops off her.
Speaker 3: Cot I'm like throwing on my sorry, and I fly
Speaker 3: past the chapel and out of the corner of my
Speaker 3: eye I catch flames.
Speaker 1: She rushes into the chapel. The new sister is inside.
Speaker 3: The sister had taken all the trash and put it
Speaker 3: under the altar and lit it on fire and was
Speaker 3: just kneeling there, staring into the fire. And I don't
Speaker 3: know why I didn't panic, but I didn't, And so
Speaker 3: I went next to her and I was like, sister,
Speaker 3: do you know that there's there's a fire under the altar?
Speaker 3: And she turned to me and she took me right
Speaker 3: in the eye and she goes, do you know I
Speaker 3: am possessed? And I said, I don't know about that,
Speaker 3: but I know I have to put that fire.
Speaker 1: Out next morning. The sister tells Sue she has no
Speaker 1: memory of the fire, but then she does it again.
Speaker 2: Soon.
Speaker 1: Sue says, this sister is setting fires every few days.
Speaker 1: Of course, Susa wreck she's losing sleep. She doesn't know
Speaker 1: what to do. She calls her regional superior, who says,
Speaker 1: just talk to her, but that doesn't help, so she
Speaker 1: calls mother, Teresa. Sue suggests sending the sister to a psychotherapist.
Speaker 3: And I said, I'm really struggling, and mother said, just
Speaker 3: give her time, sister, and just keep loving her. And
Speaker 3: when I hung up, I had great clarity, There's no
Speaker 3: way that I'm going to be able to manage this.
Speaker 1: While all of this was happening with Sue, Joan had
Speaker 1: to make a new life when she left the MC's
Speaker 1: Joan did the only thing she could do with no
Speaker 1: money and no practical work experience and really no sense
Speaker 1: of what was possible. She went home to Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: but her mistress's words followed her. She says they were
Speaker 1: like tapes, these memories of every terrible thing her mistress said,
Speaker 1: playing over and over.
Speaker 2: Jesus knows you're a fake and a phony. You're stupid,
Speaker 2: serves you right.
Speaker 1: Joan still felt called to be a nun. She went
Speaker 1: to church, but now she felt like an impostor.
Speaker 2: And then people would come to me and say, you're
Speaker 2: so holy. I would leave that church and go to
Speaker 2: another church so that no one would know me, and
Speaker 2: so I could not be noticed. And that's the worst
Speaker 2: thing that to this day, I don't want to be noticed.
Speaker 1: There is another tape that played in her head, the
Speaker 1: words of one of her confessors. That's a priest you
Speaker 1: confess your sins to, or who serves as a spiritual guide.
Speaker 4: Father.
Speaker 1: Donald McGuire was a Jesuit priest. He was convicted of
Speaker 1: sexually abusing boys and eventually sentenced in two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine to twenty five years in prison, but before that
Speaker 1: he was often assigned as a confessor for mc sisters,
Speaker 1: including Sue and Joan. Years before he was sentenced, Donald
Speaker 1: Maguire told Joe some thing that would haunt her.
Speaker 2: And he said to us, if you make it to
Speaker 2: the novitiate and you leave, you'll have handicapped children, you'll
Speaker 2: get divorced, and bad things will happen to you because
Speaker 2: God wants you here.
Speaker 1: This stuck with Joan because she had made it to
Speaker 1: the Navisia and left. Once she did, she felt like
Speaker 1: Father Maguire's warnings started to come true.
Speaker 2: I went home in January. Now, mind you, for the
Speaker 2: last two years, no love, no nothing. I met this man.
Speaker 2: He said he loved me, went to church with me,
Speaker 2: the whole nine yards.
Speaker 1: Eventually they got married.
Speaker 2: I had this huge wedding. Nuns were singing in my wedding.
Speaker 2: I mean it was huge.
Speaker 1: But Joan wasn't happy for long. She says. The relationship
Speaker 1: bended horribly after three months.
Speaker 2: Okay, so now here I am an ex nun and
Speaker 2: a man leaves me and he said to us, if
Speaker 2: you leave, you'll get divorce, You'll have handicapped children, and
Speaker 2: bad things will happen to you. So I thought, okay,
Speaker 2: I can't be a nun. I can't be married. So
Speaker 2: I went up to this place we have called Peckwi Pinnacle.
Speaker 1: She hiked through the woods up to an overlook on
Speaker 1: a tall hill near home. She could see water and
Speaker 1: trees stretched out below. This place was special to Joan.
Speaker 1: She used to talk to God here. It was where
Speaker 1: she felt her call to religious life. This time was different.
Speaker 2: I was going to jump right kill myself because God
Speaker 2: bus hate me. So when I went up there, I
Speaker 2: went to jump, and a snake slithered up in front
Speaker 2: of me. And I hate snakes, so I was scared
Speaker 2: to death. So I ran back to my car and
Speaker 2: got in my car and then went back home. Hi, beauty, Carol,
Speaker 2: do you want to meet Erica. Let's go meet Erica.
Speaker 2: Look here, look, look there's Erica. Now.
Speaker 1: Joan is a mother and a grandmother. Her daughter, Hannah,
Speaker 1: has a toddler and they live next door.
Speaker 2: I try to live in God's will and let God
Speaker 2: unfold the will. So right now the will for me
Speaker 2: is to be a great mom and a grandmother, and
Speaker 2: I lead a company.
Speaker 1: She remarried to a man she calls kind and patient
Speaker 1: named Tom.
Speaker 2: Before we got married, I said, don't marry me because
Speaker 2: I can never love you the way you deserve to
Speaker 2: be loved. Because I love God ultimately to the nth degree.
Speaker 2: God is what I love the most, and that's where
Speaker 2: I spend most of my time.
Speaker 1: But that didn't deter Tom, and he just said, no,
Speaker 1: I you know I love you. Joan made a life
Speaker 1: outside the convent. She built a small chapel for prayer
Speaker 1: in her backyard. She lived her faith in a different way.
Speaker 1: And then one day someone showed up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: a woman in a white sari with blue stripes. It
Speaker 1: was her sister, Sue. In the years before Suepper returned
Speaker 1: to Pennsylvania, her time as a superior had brought her
Speaker 1: a step deeper into the organization. It also gave her
Speaker 1: a new vantage point.
Speaker 3: When I became superior and I had more time to think.
Speaker 3: That's opened the door to really question a lot of things.
Speaker 1: She already had a growing list of concerns about the
Speaker 1: missionaries of charity, like how sisters were treated and how
Speaker 1: sisters and leadership roles used their authority.
Speaker 3: So you have sisters who were amazing and in my opinion,
Speaker 3: didn't even wield power, and then you had sisters who
Speaker 3: wield it to the empth degree. You know, everybody's at
Speaker 3: the mercy of whoever has power.
Speaker 1: There was something else that bothered her. She thinks Mother
Speaker 1: Teresa founded this order based somewhat worked for Mother Teresa,
Speaker 1: she got to follow her calling, she founded her own order,
Speaker 1: she established the rules. The Missionaries of Charity was an
Speaker 1: extension of her personality and drive. But the way Sue
Speaker 1: saw it, the sisters inside this order couldn't follow their
Speaker 1: own calling, just obey, just follow assignments, regardless of feelings.
Speaker 1: Sue says, this one size fits all doesn't work, especially
Speaker 1: for a group of women from around the world. One
Speaker 1: former sister told me a convent she was in had
Speaker 1: something like twenty seven nationalities all living together. It sometimes
Speaker 1: led to language and cultural issues. So you tried to
Speaker 1: explain that to Mother Teresa.
Speaker 3: Trying to get her to understand that everybody is not
Speaker 3: the same, Like everybody's coming in, all of us with
Speaker 3: our baggage, and in her mind, the second you crossed
Speaker 3: over the threshold to the order, all of that disappears,
Speaker 3: or it should disappear. And in the utopia of life,
Speaker 3: that would be lovely winded, like right, everybody just goes
Speaker 3: in and then we all just love each other.
Speaker 1: Instead, Sue saw sisters struggle. They were tired and stressed
Speaker 1: and grappled with language barriers. Some needed psychological care, and
Speaker 1: no one seemed to fix the problems.
Speaker 3: I realized that the order was wired that you had
Speaker 3: very little time to think, so you had your mourning
Speaker 3: prayer and your adoration. I can't speak for anybody else,
Speaker 3: but all I ever did was worked really hard not
Speaker 3: to fall asleep during that time.
Speaker 5: I've heard that from a number of people, which.
Speaker 3: Should have been the time where you can think and
Speaker 3: have your thought process. If you're in a bad relationship,
Speaker 3: if all your energy is in the bad relationship, you
Speaker 3: don't have the capacity to look at it through another lens.
Speaker 3: I could no longer live what I felt I was
Speaker 3: being called to.
Speaker 1: At one point, Sue learned about a letter Mother Teresa wrote.
Speaker 3: She was struggling with do I serve this sisters or
Speaker 3: do I serve the poor? And I will never forget this.
Speaker 3: She wrote a letter to the pope, and the Pope
Speaker 3: wrote back, and this is what he said, give necessary
Speaker 3: care to your sisters and loving care to the poor.
Speaker 3: And I was like, WTF, seriously, that is insane, Like
Speaker 3: give like the very people who are carrying out your work.
Speaker 3: The reality is without her sisters, the order doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: Women who were willing to dedicate their life to the
Speaker 3: service of the poor. You're going to give them necessary
Speaker 3: care only, and you're giving loving care to the poor. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I want I went off the deep end on.
Speaker 5: That one, because you wanted loving care for the sisters.
Speaker 3: Yes, because anybody understands humanity. You can't give what you
Speaker 3: don't have. So if you have an order of sisters
Speaker 3: who are not being filled with love, how are they
Speaker 3: going to be loving? And you see that in houses
Speaker 3: where we've been accused and rightly so, of mistreating people.
Speaker 3: And for me, it wasn't about these sisters are bad people.
Speaker 3: They were empty. They were empty, and you can't live
Speaker 3: that kind of a life if you're empty.
Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety three, Sue felt like she was on
Speaker 1: the verge of a breakdown, so she asked for a
Speaker 1: temporary leave. She went back to her parents' house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: still wearing the sarry. She kept her empty rituals. She
Speaker 1: rose early, she prayed. But something had changed. Maybe she
Speaker 1: wasn't called to life in the convent anymore, but someone
Speaker 1: else did feel the call Joan.
Speaker 2: I still felt that I was called no matter what,
Speaker 2: and I don't think it ever changes for me. It
Speaker 2: never has changed, and I fight that constantly.
Speaker 1: So it was hard for her to see Sue back
Speaker 1: in their parents' house dressed in the blue and white
Speaker 1: sorry a superior.
Speaker 2: When I left the Missionaries of Charity, I kept a
Speaker 2: lot to myself. Again, I don't share a lot with people.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm surprised I'm sharing what I'm sharing with you.
Speaker 2: I think at one point I felt weak that I
Speaker 2: couldn't do it, and so I was probably a little
Speaker 2: jealous of her that she got to stay in and
Speaker 2: she was doing it. And then also and then also
Speaker 2: I was a little hurt because I guess I wanted
Speaker 2: her to sway me to stay when I told her.
Speaker 3: I was going to leave.
Speaker 2: So for a couple of years, I probably blamed her
Speaker 2: that she didn't think I had a vocation, but I
Speaker 2: knew in my soul I did, and so I was
Speaker 2: kind of hurt by her.
Speaker 3: But it was me.
Speaker 2: It wasn't her. She wasn't intentionally hurting me, but I
Speaker 2: felt hurt by that because I felt like she didn't
Speaker 2: defend my vocation.
Speaker 1: That must have been really hard. Have you talked about
Speaker 1: this before? What is it like to hear that?
Speaker 3: Sue? I'm not surprised when it makes sense that she
Speaker 3: would feel that way for me. It wasn't about saying
Speaker 3: somebody had a vocation or not. For me, it was
Speaker 3: more of a protective and you're not going to be
Speaker 3: who you are if you stay here.
Speaker 1: After nine months in Lancaster, the reasons for Sue to
Speaker 1: leave began to outweigh her desire to stay. She stopped
Speaker 1: wearing this Harry. She wasn't going back.
Speaker 3: I was recognizing that I was no longer true to
Speaker 3: myself and that I couldn't be true to myself if
Speaker 3: I stayed in there.
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa asked her for a meeting in Harlem, one
Speaker 1: last attempt to change Sue's mind. Joan drove her there
Speaker 1: and the two of them walked into the convent together.
Speaker 3: There was a woman who made sure nobody saw me,
Speaker 3: snuck me into a poller, and then when all the
Speaker 3: sisters had gone to the chapel, she snapped me from
Speaker 3: the parlor to where mother's room was. Mother had her
Speaker 3: head down. I knelt down to get her blessing, and
Speaker 3: she blessed me, and then I sat on the chair
Speaker 3: and then she immediately was like, you need to come back.
Speaker 3: This is where God's calling you. Mother Mary wants you
Speaker 3: hear Mother Teresa. She had all her little axioms, she
Speaker 3: had all her little snippets that were exactly the same
Speaker 3: every single time you went to the table. So I
Speaker 3: felt like I was not being heard. I wanted to
Speaker 3: be heard. And finally I said, Mother, I don't know
Speaker 3: if I want to come back. I said, things would
Speaker 3: have to really change for me. She said, you need
Speaker 3: to come back. Sister Kiera is in Russia. She converted
Speaker 3: this many people to Catholicism, and that just made me like,
Speaker 3: rear up. And I looked her right in the eye
Speaker 3: and I said, yes, and you have over three thousand
Speaker 3: women religious dying in your community.
Speaker 1: At this point, Sue was yelling Joan could hear it
Speaker 1: from the next room, And.
Speaker 3: Then she kind of sat back, pulled up, and then
Speaker 3: I really felt like I was being heard.
Speaker 1: But by then it didn't matter. Nothing Mother Teresa could
Speaker 1: say would change Sue's mind. She left. Not long after
Speaker 1: she left the convent, Sue went on a spiritual retreat
Speaker 1: to reflect and figure out what to do.
Speaker 3: I was doing a three month retreat, silent retreat. I
Speaker 3: was in this tiny, little, like three hundred square foot
Speaker 3: cabin in this vast forest and incredible beauty of nature
Speaker 3: and wood burning stove, so all the wood was stacked
Speaker 3: outside and it's winter, and I just took a lot
Speaker 3: of books and all written by priests and stuff, and
Speaker 3: I started reading this book. There was a section that said,
Speaker 3: there are I forget how many ten, I think ten
Speaker 3: signs that you are in a cult. And I'm reading
Speaker 3: this book and I'm just like, oh my god, this
Speaker 3: is the Missionaries of Charity. This is the missionary And
Speaker 3: I felt like it was the first time I was
Speaker 3: reading something that was like validating my experience. And all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, I get to the end of the
Speaker 3: book and this priest says, a perfect example of a
Speaker 3: non cult is the Missionaries of Charity. I literally get
Speaker 3: up off my sofa. I opened the door. It's snowing
Speaker 3: like crazy. I fling the book out across the lawn.
Speaker 3: I end up taking all the wood and pitching it out.
Speaker 3: I was livid, like livid. I was like, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: So I go back out in the snow looking for
Speaker 3: the book that I threw out. I find it. I
Speaker 3: bring the book back in and I sit down and
Speaker 3: proceed to write this man a letter and basically say,
Speaker 3: for you to have made a statement like that, never
Speaker 3: having lived in that order is not only dangerous, it
Speaker 3: is untruthful.
Speaker 5: Thanks so much for listening, and stick with us because
Speaker 5: there's a lot more in the coming weeks.
Speaker 4: This is the first time that I have ever encountered
Speaker 4: any form of sexual violation or abuse in the missionaries
Speaker 4: of charity. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: The Turning is written by Aleen Lance, Lester and Me.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Allen Lance Luster and Emily Foreman. Our
Speaker 1: editor is Rob Rosenthal. Andrea Assuage is our digital producer.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Special thanks to Amy Gaines,
Speaker 1: Sarah Olander, Catherine Joyce, Beth Ann Mcaluso, Travis Dunlap, and
Speaker 1: consulting producer Mary Johnson. Her memoir and Unquenchable Thirst provided
Speaker 1: inspiration for this series. Our executive producers are Jessica Alpert
Speaker 1: and John Parati from Rococo Punch and Katrina Norville from iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Matt Reid for photos and
Speaker 1: more details on the series. Follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Rococo Punch. You can reach out via email to the
Speaker 1: Turning at rococopunch dot com. I America Lands