The Liberation of Brigid Dunne Read online

  Her holiday had been a turning point. She’d left Ireland a girl; she was returning home a woman. It was time to change her attitudes about how women should be in the world, she reflected as the passengers settled down for the long flight home.

  * * *

  “Teacher, Teacher, she pulled my hair!”

  “Did not!”

  “Did so!”

  Keelin held up a warning finger to the two warring five-year-olds who were glowering at each other in the straggly line that was forming at the classroom door, waiting for the bell to ring.

  “What did I say about fighting, Sheila Kelly and Cathy O’Flanagan? Down to the end of the line with you.”

  “But, Teacher, I did nuttin,” came the outraged howl from Cathy O’Flanagan.

  It was Friday afternoon. Keelin had a thumping headache from being in a stuffy classroom all day, on top of a hangover from the previous night’s carousing, in Zhivago. She couldn’t wait to see the back of her infants’ class and go home to bed for a couple of hours, before hitting Leeson Street with the girls. The bell rang, saving her from having to hold an enquiry about the hair-pulling incident as a crescendo of excited chatter swept through the line and her charges waited for her to lead them out the classroom door to the school entrance, where their parents were waiting.

  We opened a new clinic a hundred miles downriver. We had two hundred and fifty women and children on our first day; we got so many gifts of chickens, fruit, and eggs, we made a big feast and shared it with the villagers. Jakab made a pot of chicken and couscous stew, and cooked yams in banana skins over the fire. It was all delicious.

  I feel I’m making a difference, especially in the lives of women, here, in Senegal, and that is deeply satisfying. It wasn’t until I got to working on the Missions that I felt my true vocation. I’m so glad that you love teaching so much, dearest Keelin, and that life is very good for you.

  Love and Blessings,

  Brigid XXX

  PS Keep up your French language studies.

  Keelin read the last lines of her aunt’s letter, sitting in the staff room having a cup of tea. I feel I’m making a difference. Why had that jumped out at her? Why was it unsettling her? Keelin wondered irritably, stuffing the letter back into the envelope and shoving it into her bag. The old niggling longing that she’d kept at bay rose up again. Her life was so good right now, how could she possibly want to become a nun? She knew how little respect the Church gave to women.

  But I could help change that, she thought, and that’s how I would make a difference. Maybe this was what her vocation, if she had one, was about. One thing was certain; she needed to see once and for all if the religious life was for her and get it out of her system. That nagging voice that she had shushed for so long was making itself heard again.

  Cycling along the Ballymun Road after school, she kept pedalling straight on instead of turning for home, freewheeling down the hill to The Rise. She scooted left onto Griffith Avenue, wondering was she mad? Autumn had come early. Great drifts of red-gold leaves banked up against the trees that lined the long, elegant avenue. She sailed through the lights at Whitehall, cycling on until the high convent wall loomed up ahead. She’d passed it many times on her bike, or on a bus, the convent of the Soeurs du Secours Miséricordieux, where Brigid had been a postulant and then a novice.

  Keelin slowed down to turn left into the entrance to the large, graceful red-brick building. Her heart was thumping. She was surprised when a nun in a smart knee-length pleated navy skirt and white blouse opened the heavy wooden door. She wore no veil and her hair was cut in a neat bob. She looked quite modern, unlike Brigid in her traditional habit.

  “Come in; I’m Sister Frances. Mother Veronica asked me to keep an eye out for you. She’s talking to a builder about a renovation we’re doing and she’ll be down in ten minutes or so. Can I bring you some tea while you’re waiting?” the nun said pleasantly, leading her into a small parlour off the hall.

  “Thanks, that would be lovely,” Keelin murmured, fighting the urge to run. She’d a good job, money of her own, freedom of sorts. Wasn’t that enough?

  The tea and Mother Veronica arrived simultaneously, and Sister Frances asked her Superior if she’d like a cup.

  “A good strong one, please, Frances,” the older nun, who wore the traditional habit, said agreeably, shaking Keelin’s hand.

  “So you think you might have a vocation, Keelin. Tell me about it,” she invited kindly, sitting in a chair opposite Keelin. She was a tall, angular woman with a thin face dominated by bright, hazel eyes that had a humorous glint in them, despite her austere appearance.

  “Well, I suppose it was meeting my aunt Brigid the first time and hearing her stories of the Missions that ignited my interest. My aunt is one of your nuns; she works in Senegal.”

  “Your aunt is Brigid Dunne?” exclaimed the nun delightedly. “I worked with her in St. Louis, before I was recalled home and promoted. Well goodness, you couldn’t have a better role model.”

  “I know,” Keelin agreed. “I just don’t know if I have a vocation or not.”

  “Being a postulant and then a novice gives a person time to decide if the religious life is for her or not. Final vows aren’t taken for several years, so you will have plenty of time to make your decision,” Mother Veronica explained. “Tell me why you think you might have the call to enter.”

  “It’s a feeling I’ve had for years, something that won’t go away—”

  “The Lord keeps knocking until we listen.” Mother Veronica smiled.

  * * *

  “You’re not serious, Keelin! In the name of God, why would you want to give up the great life you have to become a nun! Are you mad!” Imelda was aghast at the news Keelin had imparted. “It’s all bloody Brigid’s fault, writing you those letters. Brainwashing you—”

  “Mam, stop. That’s not fair—Auntie Brigid didn’t brainwash me. Remember when I met her that first time, she urged me to live life and travel, and have fun,” Keelin protested.

  “I supposed she’s delighted,” Imelda snapped.

  “I haven’t told her yet. I wanted to tell you and Dad first,” Keelin said gently.

  “I can’t believe you’re even considering entering. I reared you to be free of religion. To have a life of your own and to be independent. Don’t forget that.”

  “I know,” Keelin agreed. “And I’m grateful to you and Teresa, and all the other women who are fighting for our equality. But, Mam, some of the work those women do out on the Missions is life-changing for the people they’re working for. And they don’t all wear the habit anymore. They’re very emancipated now, and Auntie Brigid does her own thing in Senegal. So it’s not all of them,” Keelin pointed out.

  “Keelin, I once told you that if you ever entered a convent it would be the end of us,” Imelda warned grimly. “I’ve no time for nuns, priests, religion, or any of the claptrap associated with it.”

  “And I’ll make up my own mind. So much for me being independent and liberated,” Keelin snapped.

  “Well, they’re two things you won’t be in a convent,” Imelda retorted furiously. “For God’s sake, Larry, talk some sense into her.”

  “It’s a hard life,” Larry said slowly. Keelin could see that her father was as shocked by her announcement as her mother was.

  “But it’s a lot different now. Being out in the community rather than being stuck behind convent walls—unless you’re a contemplative nun, of course—is now seen as the way forward. It’s exciting actually,” Keelin explained.

  Imelda gave a derisive snort. “Sure, aren’t you working in the community, teaching? Can’t you continue your education and go for a degree?”

  “Mam, I won’t be taking final vows for years. I can always leave if I’ve made a mistake. But something’s pushing me and I will always regret it if I don’t listen to that inner voice.”

  “Pshaw, inner voice,” scoffed Imelda.

  “Imelda, don’t be disrespectful,”
Larry said sternly, and his wife glowered at him but said no more.

  “When do you go in?” her father sighed.

  “Next January.”

  “Not too far away. At least we’ll have you with us for Christmas.” Her father held out his arms to her and Keelin hugged him tightly, grateful for his quiet understanding.

  “I know you, Keelin. You’re too strong-willed and argumentative to subjugate your personality. It will all end in tears,” Imelda said grimly, marching out of the kitchen.

  “Don’t mind your mother. You know what she’s like: bark worse than her bite. Do what you have to do. If it works out, it works out, and if it doesn’t you always have a home to come back to,” her father said reassuringly.

  His words were a balm to her agitated spirit. It was good to know she had a safety net.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was in the Mother House in Paris, a week before she was to fly to Africa, that Keelin began to wonder whether she had made a huge mistake entering the religious life. She was in the large common room with other novices, sitting in front of the big colour TV that had recently been installed and watching a televised event in St. Peter’s Square. The commentator spoke with hushed reverence as the cardinals appeared in their scarlet robes and red birettas, followed by the bishops with their mitres, monsignors and priests in their black cassocks, but to Keelin they seemed a self-important flock of peacocks on parade. A thought struck her with stomach-lurching clarity: There is no place for Jesus here. And where are the women? Women as well as men were supposed to be created in God’s likeness. There was no equality in what she was seeing. Or in the life she was living. It was as if a bucket of ice-cold water had been poured over her.

  Surrounded by her fellow Sisters, Keelin felt a surge of silent, primal rage as she watched the smug, self-satisfied princes of the Church and their cohorts cheering their leader. Pope Paul VI, austere and cold, had none of the kindly, warm-hearted humility of his predecessor, Pope John XXIII.

  Humanae Vitae, On the Regulation of Birth, an encyclical written by the Pope, had reaffirmed the orthodox teaching of the Catholic Church regarding married love, responsible parenthood, and the rejection of most forms of artificial contraception. It had caused a lot of controversy on its publication. Imelda had been scathing about it, and Keelin, once again, had been impressed with her mother’s progressive stance, particularly at a time when so many women in Ireland accepted what they were told from the pulpit without question.

  Keelin’s rage grew as the programme continued and she wondered, were these doubts and observations merely part of the process of assimilation into the life of an obedient nun? Doubts were normal, she and the other novitiates were often told by their Superiors.

  But what Keelin was experiencing went beyond the usual doubts voiced by her peers. This felt like an awakening in the very depths of her being, a realisation that the suppression of women perpetrated by the Church through the ages, and still to this very moment, was the antithesis of all that Jesus had preached. Now she could understand the attitudes of those American nuns who were demanding equality, despite being frowned upon by their French counterparts for being, as Mother General had put it, “too lacking in humility.”

  If humility meant putting up with this continued repression, supporting an organization that perpetuated such abuse, Keelin wanted no part of it. Why had it taken her until now to see what was under her very nose? How ironic, that it was in a convent, in the process of offering her life to God and the Church, that the scales were falling from her eyes, she thought ruefully.

  The following day she went to confession. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s a week since my last confession, Father. I have grave doubts about the Church, and becoming a nun. I have fears about taking my final vows,” she declared.

  “That’s normal, my child; I would have fears for you if you didn’t,” Monsignor LeFrey, the chaplain to the convent, said humorously. “Tell me about your doubts about the Church, firstly, so I can allay them for you.”

  It poured out of her, her sudden awakening. Why could women not be priests? It was a man-made law, not the law of Jesus.

  In the dark of the confessional, kneeling to a man who sat with a barrier between them, looking down upon her, Keelin was too upset to see the irony of her position.

  “So you are one of these new feminist types that I’m seeing so many of lately,” the monsignor said slowly.

  Keelin felt a wave of relief at his words. She wasn’t alone. There were others with doubts, here in France as well as America.

  “Wanting equality is important,” she said quietly. “I don’t like to label people.”

  “And you imagine that you, a young, untried girl, know better than the finest theological minds in the Church? You think you know more than the Pope, who is infallible when he makes decisions concerning the Church. Jesus had twelve apostles. They were men. His women followers played their role also, just as you will, dear Sister, but first you must overcome this uprising of the ego. The ego is the greatest enemy to those of us in Holy Orders. Your greatest battles will be with your ego and not Mother Church, as you imagine. Suppress the ego so that humility will triumph and you have won the battle. Be humble in your thoughts. Be meek and self-effacing in your daily duties and you will come through. Leave these thoughts about women’s place in the Church, and the Pope’s encyclicals, to wise and experienced theologians whose job it is to rule on such things. Go teach the little children in Africa of the love of Jesus and the glory of the Church. Pray to our Holy Mother to make you unpresumptuous in thought. Say five rosaries and fast for two days as your penance. Now say your act of contrition and ask for forgiveness, my child, that I may grant it to you. Oh my God…,” he began patronizingly, as though she were a six-year-old.

  “Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, Who art infinitely good, and I firmly resolve with the help of Thy Grace never to offend Thee again,” she murmured, heavy-hearted.

  Was it her ego that was causing her such doubts, radical thought, and angst? Keelin agonized, returning to her pew to begin her penance.

  True, subduing the ego was the greatest struggle in Holy Orders. If Brigid could do it, surely she could, Keelin assured herself, beginning the first of her five rosaries.

  * * *

  “Sister Michael, I’m afraid we expect you to wear a veil and white habit here in Nigeria,” the Mistress of Novices, Mère Benedict, said firmly after Keelin followed her fellow novices from the convent church after Lauds.

  It was her first morning in the convent in Ikorodu, a city where the Order had a primary and secondary school on a large, enclosed compound. Keelin had come to church wearing a patterned green-and-gold cotton shirtdress. She’d never worn a veil, not as a postulant, and not in the six months she’d spent in the novitiate in Dublin.

  She’d been sent to Ikorodu to teach in the primary school while continuing her novitiate. And when the Boeing 707 had taken off from Heathrow to Lagos she couldn’t have been more excited. This was what she’d entered for.

  Keelin had spoken to nuns who had worked in Nigeria and read up on the country she was going to. As in Ireland before colonization, when the Brehon Laws gave a woman the right to retain all land, flocks, and household goods she brought to the marriage, in what was quite a matriarchal society, women in Nigeria had traditionally played a major role in social and economic activities, wielding considerable power and even becoming tribal chiefs. Colonization had altered gender relationships and eroded that power. Keelin was determined to empower her young female charges and be a champion of women’s rights.

  Now she was being told to wear the veil by her Superior. That was a bit disheartening, she thought, dismayed. “I haven’t worn a veil or a habit since I entered, Mère,” she said politely.

  “My dear, you’re in Africa now; we do things differently here. It’s a requirement of this convent that you wear the habit. We expect it of every nun, indigenous or not.” M�
�re Benedict smiled sweetly, but her voice was firm and her brown eyes steely.

  “Very well, Mère,” Keelin acquiesced politely.

  “A word of advice, Sister. I and many of my colleagues do not agree with the liberal regime that is running rampant through religious orders. We still abide by the rules and regulations set by Rome and endorsed by our last Chapter, a year ago. If you remember this, you will settle in quicker. Go to the Almoner to get a habit,” Mère Benedict instructed.

  “Thank you, Mère,” Keelin said calmly, but her heart sank. She’d heard that the African religious were still very traditional. This was surely the proof. Mother Veronica’s parting words when Keelin left Dublin came to mind: “You and your vocation will be tested in Africa. Prepare for that.”

  * * *

  The days slipped into a pattern that Keelin found hard to adjust to. The teaching was a joy to her. She’d a natural affinity with children and loved their honesty and view of life, but once school was over and she’d corrected homework and prepared the following day’s lessons, she was expected to behave in a nunny-like way, as she privately called it, and pray and study the Bible, and say her Office. She’d done all this in Dublin and Paris, but she’d also been encouraged to take courses in social justice, and she’d volunteered with the St. Vincent de Paul charity to visit vulnerable families and the elderly. When she’d expressed a wish to Mère Benedict to undertake similar community work in Ikorodu, her Superior had told her, “In time, Sister. For now you must concentrate on your spiritual studies, for they are equally important.”

  Keelin felt utterly restricted. Despite tales of bag snatching and robberies, she longed to explore the city, but because she was in the novitiate she was denied the freedoms enjoyed by professed nuns. Every Saturday she had to confess her sins and Father Eze probed more than she liked. “Your resentment towards the rules of the community comes from ego, Sister. It is something you must battle,” he’d informed her the previous Saturday, and she’d longed to tell him to feck off. She’d much more to offer than to be kneeling in churches, trying to pray, when she could be teaching young women in the city ways to help themselves out of poverty.