According to this article (which I found because of the amazing American Papist!), Sister Maria Jesus Galen of Toledo, Spain was banished from her convent.
Why? According to the article, her sisters said it was because her facebook activity had "made life impossible." Apparently Sister Maria was a whiz at computers, digitizing the convent's archives, online banking, etc, and was even awarded a prize by the local government for her prowess in cyberspace.
However, the trouble came when she had gathered too many facebook friends, and she was ousted from the community.
The article states that the nun had over 600 friends--granted, that isn't an extraordinary number by today's standards, but let me explain.
-First of all, nuns are cloistered, meaning that they have little to no contact with the outside world--in fact, they SOLEMNLY VOW to adhere to the standards of their order--which includes giving up worldly possessions, and frequent contact with family and friends.
-With that in mind, in my opinion, there is no reason a cloistered nun should be using facebook.
American Papist Thomas Peters points out that there is probably more to this story than is mentioned in the article--and I agree with him that this punishment seems a bit harsh, considering the facts that we know. However, I also believe that cloistered nuns shouldn't have a facebook page. It's like an alcoholic-turned-teetotaler owning a liquor store...not good.
Cheers!
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Wow. This a fascinating story. Back in the good ole days (you know, in the Middle Ages), cloistered nuns were allowed to carry on written correspondence. Hildegard Von Bingen carried on a lively correspondence with popes and Holy Roman Emperors and other church leaders. And she was an anchorite. But, obviously, FB communication is a lot more like face-to-face conversation than it is like the writing Von Bingen did.
ReplyDeleteWOW!!! This is very interesting Laura! I never thought that a nun can have a facebook, but I agree this is so harsh, I am sure there is more to the story.
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