Gemma Therese

Fantasy?

http://www.nashvilledominican.org

I have met them, they are genuinely happy.

Gemma Therese

elektra

How did you establish the truth of your statement that nuns are happy? How did you establish that those nuns who are unhappy were not nuns by God's will? Aren't you rather just making it up as you go along? And isn't that compromising truth?

livius drusus

I'm talking about your fantasy, Gemma, that nuns are happy ergo their God exists.

You have not met every nun. You haven't even met an infenitesimal fraction of the nuns in this country, never mind the world, so the fact that you've met a few happy ones means exactly nothing about the general happiness of worldwide nunnery.

What is your response to the Church-sponsored study that found 40% of American nuns reported sexual trauma at the hands of their clerical brethren causing "feelings of anger, shame, anxiety and depression" and leading some to "consider leaving religious life" or even attempting suicide? Forty percent, Gemma. That is a massive number. Where do they fit into your belief system?

Gemma Therese

Here:

http://www.funmurphys.com/blog/archives/00000100.html

By the by, I have not met every battered woman in the world either, but I think it's a pretty safe bet to say they are sadder than the general population.

Gemma Therese

Gemma Therese

Letter to the editor, St. Louis Post - Dispatch (Except)

"The front page subheading states "An estimated 40 pct. were victimized, some by priests, other nuns, survey found." However, nowhere in the article is there evidence for this 40 percent estimate. According to the tables in the article, 18.6 percent of the nuns who responded to the survey reported that they were sexually abused as children, and the majority of these incidents were at the hands of family members. The percentage reporting any instances of sexual exploitation or harassment during their religious life is lower (12.5 percent and 9.3 percent). Thus, the 40 percent claim and its association with "priests and other nuns" appears to be deliberately misleading.

"Another subheading alleges that the study has been "kept quiet," when in fact, the results had been previously reported in two religious research journals. To attribute one's own lack of awareness to an alleged conspiracy when the research has appeared in print twice is both bizarre and suggestive of serious bias."

Janet Lauritsen
Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice
University of Missouri at St. Louis

-----
livius drusus, any response?

Gemma Therese

livius drusus

Unless you are blasphemously omniscient, what you think is irrelevant. Battered women could just as well collectively delude themselves into thinking they are happier with the abuser than they would be without.

Whether it's nuns or battered women, your "safe bet" is meaningless, an assumption based on your preconceived notions. Until you provide some kind of evidence for your assertion that nuns are happier than the general population, you have no argument

Gemma Therese

livius drusus,

You failed to comment on the misleading sexual-abuse study.

Gemma Therese

livius drusus

Perhaps you should look to the log in your eye rather than brush at the mote in mine. You have failed to answer pretty much everyone in this thread or in the myriad other Catholic PR threads you've started.

Still, never fear, I will reply to Janet Lauritsen's comment. I work for a living, see, so you'll just have to be as patient with me as the rest of us have been with you. Well, actually, not quite that patient, because unlike you, I will answer.

Will you provide evidence for your assertion that nuns are happier than the general populace?

Arken

I think I'm going to take a Douglas Adams approach to the OP.

Why are nuns happy?

Because they're ignorant monkeys who don't know any better. Share and enjoy!


(P.S. This answer applies to most human relations questions one can ask)

Relative Newcomer

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2003pres/20030401.html

I could not find the statistics for sexually abused female children in the U.S., however, the link above provides the following information:
This includes ALL reported cases of abuse, with sexually abused female children a percentage of the 12.4. Of course these are the reported cases of abuse...but when compared to the 18.4% reported by nuns as children (that's 18.4 per 100, not the 12.4 per 1000) it would seem to me that this is a very high percentage. IOW, those women who choose to enter the church as nuns and take their vows are far more likely to have been sexually abused as children.
OTOH, 12.5/9.3% of nuns being sexually abused simply seems outrageous to me. It should be 0%.