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Digger


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Nuns who belonged to Missionaries of Charity claim they were made to flog themselves 50 times a day, forbidden to shower
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Women who gave up everything to follow Mother Teresa and devote their lives to her Missionaries of Charity are now sharing shocking insights into the closed Catholic congregation in a new podcast that sees them comparing the religious group to a cult. 

From the 'military training' which 'breaks you down into nothing' by cutting you off from all friends and family to the daily rituals of self-flogging, wearing spiked chains which point inwards and washing yourself with nothing but a tin can full of water, ex-sisters are lifting the lid on what life was really like behind convent walls in The Turning: The Sisters Who Left.

'One doesn't always know where to draw the line between religion and cult,' says Mary Johnson, who spent 20 years in Missionaries of Charity [MC] before leaving through official channels in 1997. 

Mary, who has written a memoir about her experience upon which the podcast is based, claims the closed society, which contains secret ceremonies and rituals - including cutting all the hair off new recruits and burning it - carried the 'characteristics of those groups that we easily recognise as cults' in 'so many ways'

Sisters were even forbidden from receiving phone calls from family members except in an emergency and only allowed to visit home once every 10 years. 

'I think Mother Teresa took everything to its most radical conclusion,' Mary says in the podcast. 'All the contact with my family had been cut off. Oh, I used to get homesick a lot.' 

Mary - who grew up in Michigan and Texas, the oldest of seven children in a Catholic family - explains how she signed up in summer of 1977 aged 19 after reading about Mother Teresa in Time magazine.

Mary tells how Mother Teresa, who died in 1997 aged 87 and was known in her lifetime as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, was 'very concerned about maintaining the vow of chastity' to the point of paranoia, and 'passed that on to everybody else' - which resulted in a ban on touching each other, and limited physical contact with the people they cared for.

'She would say, "Sometimes of course it’s necessary; you have to touch the babies, you have to feed the babies. But as soon as that baby is fed, you put that baby down",' Mary recalls.

'You could not have a friend. This was very specifically prohibited. They called it "particular friendship". If somebody saw you getting kind of closer to one sister than to another, you would be called out on it.'

Another ritual Mary spoke of was that of 'the discipline' - a sheath of knotted cords the nuns were expected to beat themselves with every evening as a form of penance. 

'This was a daily practice every day except Sunday. Or big feasts days,' she explains.

'It started off with very few strokes. If I remember right, it was about 15. Eventually when I became a finally professed sister, it would be 50 strokes... every night.

Ex-nun Colette Livermore, who started with the MCs in Australia in 1973 and has also written a memoir about her experience, said it was 'very hard' on her family, to the point where it was 'like she was dead'.

'You're isolated from everyone else. That's what I mean by brainwashing,' she says. 

She recalls an incident in the podcast where her superior had held back letters 'as a sacrifice' which meant she missed one from her mother telling her one of her brothers was in hospital and it was touch and go whether he'd pull through.

When her mother called the convent in tears, Colette was allowed to take the call, but her request to go home and visit was denied. 

https://www.nytimes.com/



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Digger


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RE: Nuns who belonged to Missionaries of Charity claim they were made to flog themselves 50 times a day, forbidden to sh
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She certainly didn't deserve a sainthood.  It's well documented that she let people suffer.

Mary Loudon, who volunteered to work with MT, observed "syringes run under cold water and reused, aspirin given to those with terminal cancer, and cold baths given to everyone.   

In 2013, in a comprehensive review covering 96% of the literature on Mother Teresa, a group of Université de Montréal academics reinforced the foregoing criticism, detailing, among other issues, the missionary's practice of "caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce". Questioning the Vatican's motivations for ignoring the mass of criticism, the study concluded that Mother Teresa's "hallowed image – which does not stand up to analysis of the facts – was constructed, and that her beatification was orchestrated by an effective media relations campaign" engineered by the Catholic convert and anti-abortion BBC  journalist Malcom Muggeridge. 

Let's face it, the Vatican does tend to cover up the truth and turn a blind eye to all those paedo priests, and if it suited the 'holy' agenda, then MT as well.   I personally think she was a deluded old despot.

 



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John Doe


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Nuns who belonged to Missionaries of Charity claim they were made to flog themselves 50 times a day, forbidden to shower
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I have said this before on here Digs.

The twisted bag was a fraud, a hypocrite, a sadist and a functioning psychopath who delighted in the suffering and deaths of the poorest and most vulnerable.

Christoper Hitchens was always spot on about the evil old bitch as his excellent book proved (also there are many superb videos of him eloquently putting the boot into her on YouTube).

People should take off their rose coloured spectacles, read the sordid facts and discover what a monster she really was.

If I believed in a Hell she would be burning right now.

173747.jpg

 



-- Edited by John Doe on Monday 24th of May 2021 11:35:13 PM

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Syl


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Were the nuns allowed to leave if they wished to?

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John Doe


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Syl wrote:

Were the nuns allowed to leave if they wished to?

Well as the Eagles once said -

"We are programmed to receive.

You can check-out any time you like, 

But you can never leave!"



-- Edited by John Doe on Monday 24th of May 2021 11:38:18 PM

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RE: Nuns who belonged to Missionaries of Charity claim they were made to flog themselves 50 times a day, forbidden to sh
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John Doe wrote:
Syl wrote:

Were the nuns allowed to leave if they wished to?

Well as the Eagles once said -

"We are programmed to receive.

You can check-out any time you like, 

But you can never leave!"



-- Edited by John Doe on Monday 24th of May 2021 11:38:18 PM

 Yes but that was California not Calcutta.



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Syl wrote:

Were the nuns allowed to leave if they wished to?

 Like most cults you want to leave but find you can't.   Real Hotel California shit.



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John Doe


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Digger wrote:
Syl wrote:

Were the nuns allowed to leave if they wished to?

 Like most cults you want to leave but find you can't.   Real Hotel California shit.

That was exactly my point.

Try leaving Islam for example - even in a secular Western country, those poor people (at the very best) lose their families and anywhere else their lives.

Religion is the gift that keeps on giving time after time.

I cant understand why evolution has not booted it out yet - kin selection and tribal dynamics I suppose plus the relatively short timescales since the Ice Age and the rise of City States and elites since we spent the other 280,000 years in small family groups as hunter gatherers.

Eden lost perhaps?

 



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Digger


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John Doe wrote:
Digger wrote:
Syl wrote:

Were the nuns allowed to leave if they wished to?

 Like most cults you want to leave but find you can't.   Real Hotel California shit.

That was exactly my point.

Try leaving Islam for example - even in a secular Western country, those poor people (at the very best) lose their families and anywhere else their lives.

Religion is the gift that keeps on giving time after time.

I cant understand why evolution has not booted it out yet - kin selection and tribal dynamics I suppose plus the relatively short timescales since the Ice Age and the rise of City States and elites since we spent the other 280,000 years in small family groups as hunter gatherers.

Eden lost perhaps?

 

 We, as a species, don't seem to learn anything.   Even the most well intentioned beliefs and religions etc often end up corrupted by the egos of the strongest willed who put themselves at the top of the pile.



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Maddog


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Digger wrote:
John Doe wrote:
Digger wrote:
Syl wrote:

Were the nuns allowed to leave if they wished to?

 Like most cults you want to leave but find you can't.   Real Hotel California shit.

That was exactly my point.

Try leaving Islam for example - even in a secular Western country, those poor people (at the very best) lose their families and anywhere else their lives.

Religion is the gift that keeps on giving time after time.

I cant understand why evolution has not booted it out yet - kin selection and tribal dynamics I suppose plus the relatively short timescales since the Ice Age and the rise of City States and elites since we spent the other 280,000 years in small family groups as hunter gatherers.

Eden lost perhaps?

 

 We, as a species, don't seem to learn anything.   Even the most well intentioned beliefs and religions etc often end up corrupted by the egos of the strongest willed who put themselves at the top of the pile.

 It's that way with most organizations, be they religious or government. 

 

Mao rose to power promising starving people something in this life they hadn't had before. He wound up killing tens of millions "helping" them.   



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Digger


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Maddog wrote:
Digger wrote:
John Doe wrote:
Digger wrote:
Syl wrote:

Were the nuns allowed to leave if they wished to?

 Like most cults you want to leave but find you can't.   Real Hotel California shit.

That was exactly my point.

Try leaving Islam for example - even in a secular Western country, those poor people (at the very best) lose their families and anywhere else their lives.

Religion is the gift that keeps on giving time after time.

I cant understand why evolution has not booted it out yet - kin selection and tribal dynamics I suppose plus the relatively short timescales since the Ice Age and the rise of City States and elites since we spent the other 280,000 years in small family groups as hunter gatherers.

Eden lost perhaps?

 

 We, as a species, don't seem to learn anything.   Even the most well intentioned beliefs and religions etc often end up corrupted by the egos of the strongest willed who put themselves at the top of the pile.

 It's that way with most organizations, be they religious or government. 

 

Mao rose to power promising starving people something in this life they hadn't had before. He wound up killing tens of millions "helping" them.   

 It's getting like the Khmer Rouge in our schools and universities here with students snitching on teachers or other students if they step outside the woke corral.  Some poor woman simply said women have vaginas and got snitched on to the University higher ups and is going through disciplinary for having an opinion.   



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Maddog


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Nuns who belonged to Missionaries of Charity claim they were made to flog themselves 50 times a day, forbidden to shower
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"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science."


One of those smart British Lord Fellas, back when they wrote some profound shit...

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Syl


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"Great men are always bad men"....I wonder if that's true. Presumably they have to be ruthless, but that doesn't have to mean 'bad'.

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Maddog


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RE: Nuns who belonged to Missionaries of Charity claim they were made to flog themselves 50 times a day, forbidden to sh
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Syl wrote:

"Great men are always bad men"....I wonder if that's true. Presumably they have to be ruthless, but that doesn't have to mean 'bad'.

 I think he was using great to define their status or power.  

 

I think Bob the barkeep from Bristol could be a great man, but not in the sense that Acton fella is using.  



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Syl


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Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:

"Great men are always bad men"....I wonder if that's true. Presumably they have to be ruthless, but that doesn't have to mean 'bad'.

 I think he was using great to define their status or power.  

 

I think Bob the barkeep from Bristol could be a great man, but not in the sense that Acton fella is using.  

 I  was actually meaning 'great' in the same way he meant.

Powerful leaders etc....have they all been bad? I doubt it.



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John Doe


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Nuns who belonged to Missionaries of Charity claim they were made to flog themselves 50 times a day, forbidden to shower
Permalink   
 

Syl wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:

"Great men are always bad men"....I wonder if that's true. Presumably they have to be ruthless, but that doesn't have to mean 'bad'.

 I think he was using great to define their status or power.  

 

I think Bob the barkeep from Bristol could be a great man, but not in the sense that Acton fella is using.  

 I  was actually meaning 'great' in the same way he meant.

Powerful leaders etc....have they all been bad? I doubt it.

I agree, for example the great stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (he was one of the 'Five Good Emperors' along with Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius all excellent leaders) certainly was not a bad man but a truly magnificent one (his 'Meditations' jotted down for only himself to read in battle tents is superb and far superior to all the so called 'Holy' books we are still lumbered with).

2ca4ba18a14c1d5073ab8d5388c5d304.jpg

 



-- Edited by John Doe on Wednesday 26th of May 2021 05:52:04 PM

__________________

Simple. You, you're the threads. But me, I'm the rope.

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Maddog


Go Outside

Posts: 7011
Date:
RE: Nuns who belonged to Missionaries of Charity claim they were made to flog themselves 50 times a day, forbidden to sh
Permalink   
 

Syl wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:

"Great men are always bad men"....I wonder if that's true. Presumably they have to be ruthless, but that doesn't have to mean 'bad'.

 I think he was using great to define their status or power.  

 

I think Bob the barkeep from Bristol could be a great man, but not in the sense that Acton fella is using.  

 I  was actually meaning 'great' in the same way he meant.

Powerful leaders etc....have they all been bad? I doubt it.

 Great men are almost always bad men



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The deity known as Maddog.
Maddog


Go Outside

Posts: 7011
Date:
Permalink   
 

John Doe wrote:
Syl wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:

"Great men are always bad men"....I wonder if that's true. Presumably they have to be ruthless, but that doesn't have to mean 'bad'.

 I think he was using great to define their status or power.  

 

I think Bob the barkeep from Bristol could be a great man, but not in the sense that Acton fella is using.  

 I  was actually meaning 'great' in the same way he meant.

Powerful leaders etc....have they all been bad? I doubt it.

I agree, for example the great stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (he was one of the 'Five Good Emperors' along with Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius all excellent leaders) certainly was not a bad man but a truly magnificent one (his 'Meditations' jotted down for only himself to read in battle tents is superb and far superior to all the so called 'Holy' books we are still lumbered with).

2ca4ba18a14c1d5073ab8d5388c5d304.jpg

 



-- Edited by John Doe on Wednesday 26th of May 2021 05:52:04 PM

 I'm somewhat interested in the stoic philosophy. 

 

I didn't picture it being something up your alley.  



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The deity known as Maddog.
John Doe


Still Here!

Posts: 10372
Date:
Permalink   
 

Maddog wrote:
John Doe wrote:
Syl wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:

"Great men are always bad men"....I wonder if that's true. Presumably they have to be ruthless, but that doesn't have to mean 'bad'.

 I think he was using great to define their status or power.  

 

I think Bob the barkeep from Bristol could be a great man, but not in the sense that Acton fella is using.  

 I  was actually meaning 'great' in the same way he meant.

Powerful leaders etc....have they all been bad? I doubt it.

I agree, for example the great stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (he was one of the 'Five Good Emperors' along with Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius all excellent leaders) certainly was not a bad man but a truly magnificent one (his 'Meditations' jotted down for only himself to read in battle tents is superb and far superior to all the so called 'Holy' books we are still lumbered with).

2ca4ba18a14c1d5073ab8d5388c5d304.jpg

 



-- Edited by John Doe on Wednesday 26th of May 2021 05:52:04 PM

 I'm somewhat interested in the stoic philosophy. 

 

I didn't picture it being something up your alley.  

Oh yes MD, do you have 'Meditations'?



__________________

Simple. You, you're the threads. But me, I'm the rope.

Gatehouse - The Shadow Line.
Maddog


Go Outside

Posts: 7011
Date:
Permalink   
 

John Doe wrote:
Maddog wrote:
John Doe wrote:
Syl wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:

"Great men are always bad men"....I wonder if that's true. Presumably they have to be ruthless, but that doesn't have to mean 'bad'.

 I think he was using great to define their status or power.  

 

I think Bob the barkeep from Bristol could be a great man, but not in the sense that Acton fella is using.  

 I  was actually meaning 'great' in the same way he meant.

Powerful leaders etc....have they all been bad? I doubt it.

I agree, for example the great stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (he was one of the 'Five Good Emperors' along with Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius all excellent leaders) certainly was not a bad man but a truly magnificent one (his 'Meditations' jotted down for only himself to read in battle tents is superb and far superior to all the so called 'Holy' books we are still lumbered with).

2ca4ba18a14c1d5073ab8d5388c5d304.jpg

 



-- Edited by John Doe on Wednesday 26th of May 2021 05:52:04 PM

 I'm somewhat interested in the stoic philosophy. 

 

I didn't picture it being something up your alley.  

Oh yes MD, do you have 'Meditations'?

 Nah. I'm just trying to find a philosophies that match my own beliefs. 

 

Or explain them.

 

Like Objectivism, which isn't Stoicism, but also something I relate to at times.  

 

Maybe I'll buy it. 



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