Madam, – I am a former priest married to a former nun, and Patsy McGarry’s article on the experiences of former nuns in Australia (April 2nd) opened up, for me, a bucket of worms. I hope the revelations develop because, so far, what we’ve read is only the tip of the iceberg.
Vis-a-vis the Australian revelations, here’s my experience.
My nun/girlfriend was pregnant and when I went to my bishop to tell him I was leaving the priesthood to marry her he implicitly told me to dump her, that she would be looked after.
We had plans to live in her father’s house and run his business but my bishop, through the Knights of Columbanus, pressurised her father to persuade us to leave the diocese. We did.
A relative of mine left the convent in her mid 20s. She was driven to the house of a relative of hers in Dublin and given an empty suitcase by her driver and fellow nun. She was instructed to go inside, take off the habit, thereby returning it to the order. Minutes later, out at the kerbside, she handed back the suitcase with the habit in it while dressed in a borrowed dressing gown. Yours, etc,