- “Sanctuary” – A place of refuge or safety.
- “Cesspool” – A disgusting or corrupt place.
It is normally admirable to see
someone who is sold out to God, serving Him at all costs, and is willing to do
anything to please our Lord. This often
appears to be the case with Catholic monks and nuns. Most of the people within these two groups appear
to have a very sincere dedication to God (or to the Church), since they have chosen
“the consecrated life.”
Now, understand that there are
different groups of nuns and monks and they don’t all have the same rules. Some are stricter than others. But all of them have a measure of asceticism
built into their system.
Asceticism
The online dictionary.com describes asceticism as:
1) The
manner of life, practices, or principles of an ascetic.
2) The
doctrine that a person can attain a high spiritual and moral state by
practicing self-denial, self-mortification, and the like.
3) Rigorous
self-denial; extreme abstinence; austerity.
According to the Oxford Languages dictionary, it means:
"Severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of
indulgence, typically for religious reasons."
So that is why when a would-be monk or
nun enters these groups, they will then be isolated, at least to a certain
extent, for a period of time to live very closely together in a monastery (monks with other monks or
nuns with other nuns). In extreme cases,
they will be completely isolated from the outside world (cloistered), with
almost no exceptions. Sometimes, nuns
will live in a convent, where there seems to be a little more freedom.
Furthermore, Catholic nuns and monks generally
will be forced to live a celibate life, meaning that they will not be allowed
to marry and they must abstain from sex, in some cases, for the rest of their
lives.
If that’s not hard enough, some of
these “religious,” as they are sometimes called, are usually expected to
discipline and punish themselves by eating very small and simple meals (e.g.,
bread and water), sometimes only once a day.
Depending on the type of monastery, they are expected to fast often for
long periods of time, sleep on hard floors or boards, wear extremely uncomfortable
clothing (sometimes made of itchy hair or sharp metal pieces) for long periods,
whip themselves (self-flagellation), wear tight cords around the body, and/or sometimes
taking vows of silence or vows of poverty, etc., etc.
Obviously, this won’t make most people
say, “Hey, sign me up for that!” No, this lifestyle is unusually harsh and most Catholics will avoid it.
Motive?
Again, it is indeed rare to see such
dedication toward God or Church, but what is the reason for going to this
extreme? Why choose to live such a harsh
lifestyle?
Perhaps it is because they are trying
to follow what Jesus said:
“And he
said to them all, ‘If
any man will come
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.’”
(Luke 9:23)
Or maybe they are thinking of what the
apostle Paul said:
“but I buffet my body and make it my slave,
lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be
disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:27- NASB)
Do they intend to emulate the apostle
Paul in his hardships and suffering (Galatians 5:24; 2 Corinthians 6:4-10)
or are they even trying to outdo the
apostle Paul?
But what they do in the monastery is
not what Jesus and Paul were talking about.
There is a balance in your spiritual life and its discipline. In fact, Paul warned against legalistic asceticism.
Such a life of legalism will only keep
you from serving God properly:
“If you
have died with Christ to the spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you
still belonged to the world, do you submit to its regulations: “Do
not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”? These will all
perish with use, because they are based on human commands and
teachings. Such restrictions indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with
their self-prescribed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment
of the body; but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.” (Colossians
2:20-23 - BSB)
It is possible that their motives are
well-intended, but we need to remain biblical
if we really want to please God.
Much of convent/monastic life is unnecessary. If you really want to please God, try
spending more time at home in prayer, and in the Word of God.
Thinking about a vow of silence? How about keeping your mouth shut at the
appropriate times, but use your freedom of speech to spread the true
gospel!
Instead of taking a vow of poverty,
get a job and actually help others financially who live in poverty!
Instead of trying to live a life of isolation in a monastery (which you
won’t find in the New Testament), do what Jesus said and interact with the lost
by taking the gospel to the world! (Matthew 28:18-20)
Instead of making yourself miserable,
pray for those who ARE ALREADY miserable!
This life in the convent or monastery
is closely tied in with a works-based salvation, that is, they believe that they
get more “points” doing this and they have a “better chance” to get into
Heaven. It is an earning system.
Bad Environment
Not only is there an issue with
asceticism in convents and monasteries, but there is something that is
recognized by most as a more sinister
problem. When there are so many celibate
people of the same sex trapped together indefinitely, bad things tend to
happen. An environment like this invites
trouble. We’ve all heard of pedophile and
sexual predator priests in the Catholic Church, but what about nuns and
monks? Can it be that the same things
happen to them, as well? Indeed it can.
Back in January 2019, CBS News did a video on nuns accused of
sexual misconduct. One of the former
nuns that CBS interviewed, Trish
Cahill, was sexually abused by an older nun.
Cahill, when speaking to the CBS
News correspondent, used the phrase “pedophile nun.” And the correspondent said that the phrase
“‘Pedophile nun’ is a phrase I think most of our viewers will have never
heard.” The former nun replied, “Really? Wow!
That’s really a shame because there’s a lot of them out there. It’s the secret not yet told.”
The Catholic Church is very aware that
it breeds such victims. Cahill also
later said, concerning a financial settlement she received from the Church for
the abuse she suffered, “They had canon lawyers on retainer just for people
like me!” That is, the Church had
lawyers ever ready to defend against the inevitable… those who would make
accusations of a sexual nature against Catholic leaders. Again, the Catholic Church knows very well
the monster they have created with these convents and monasteries and their
forced living conditions.
But thank God, some are finally
realizing what Protestants have been saying about the Catholic Church for a
long time: In this same video, another former nun, Mary Dispenza, said, “The
demands of chastity and celibacy are unrealistic demands for many of us.”
Exactly! They may mean well in the beginning, but it
often ends in disaster.
See the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THoy6mLX9r4
Problems in the Church
Again, sexual abuse by priests (and
others in the hierarchy) is well known and documented. But there are many reports and stories of
monks and nuns who have abused others, as well. This abuse has fallen under
different categories. Sometimes it is
psychological, sometimes verbal, very often it is sexual, and many times it is
strictly physical abuse.
These stories and accusations have been
around for a long, long time - for decades, or most likely, centuries. Sexual deviancy in the Catholic Church was
especially a problem during the time of the Borgia popes (in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries), but the Catholic Church, not surprisingly, not only tries
to downplay these perverted activities, but the Vatican will also hide their
modern predators from the public by not contacting law enforcement, but rather,
shuffling off offenders to other areas of the country where they are unknown,
starting the same cycle all over again.
The Cat is Out of the Bag
Interestingly, the popular website Catholic Answers wrote an article in
March of 2008, titled “Convent Horror Stories.”
See here:
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/convent-horror-stories
According to this article, when
Catholics first came to America, Protestants viewed the Catholic Church as the
“sworn enemy of freedom.” The author
tells us of (alleged) liars who came against the Church and spread horrible
stories and “urban legends,” making it sound as though Catholic priests were
perverts. The author of the article
mocked those Catholic haters who seemed to view the responsibilities of a nun
to be “serving the perverse sexual needs of Catholic priests.” Catholic
Answers mocks these (allegedly) fabricated “convent horror stories,” and
considers them all to be false. They try
to make it appear as though no such thing has happened among the priesthood.
But more interesting yet, is the fact
that in August 2018, the Pennsylvania
Grand Jury Report came out nationwide and it revealed that some of those very
types of things mentioned in the Catholic Answers article were actually true
and still happening today. The types of
activities they brushed off as nonsense in 2008 were actually confirmed in
2018. Not only those things that were mentioned
in the Catholic Answers article, but
far worse, including pedophilia. See
here:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4757021-Pennsylvania-Grand-Jury-Report-on-Catholic.html
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/14/us/pennsylvania-catholic-church-grand-jury/index.html
Here is
an article with some of my thoughts on this:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/search?q=pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report
also mentioned the involvement of at least one nun, who helped a priest in some of his assaults upon certain
victims, and who also, herself, sexually assaulted a male victim (more than
once).
The report also includes an incident
of at least one monk who abused a male victim.
The focus of the Pennsylvania Grand
Jury Report seems to have been mainly on priests,
but one would be naïve to think that nuns and monks are exempt from such
behavior.
If you think that nuns abusing others
is something that doesn’t exist, see this link:
https://www.snapnetwork.org/nun_abuse
And these
two by the New York Post:
https://nypost.com/2019/02/16/inside-the-horrifying-unspoken-world-of-sexually-abusive-nuns/
https://nypost.com/2020/12/22/nuns-were-pimps-for-sick-priests-says-sex-abuse-victim/
If you think that monks abusing others
is something that does not exist, see these links:
https://www.snapnetwork.org/man_claims_monk_sexually_abused_him_more_than_100_times_as_a_kid
https://www.snapnetwork.org/west_abused_children_spent_time_philadelphia_aug19
This is some Jeffrey Epstein type of
behavior!
And in case you’re thinking that this
Grand Jury Report is not substantial, or even fake, the Vatican acknowledges the
seriousness of those Pennsylvania findings:
“The Holy See treats with great
seriousness the work of the investigating Grand Jury of Pennsylvania and the
lengthy Interim Report it has produced.”
See here:
Conclusion
So, the conclusion is that convents
and monasteries are indeed not the sanctuaries they claim to be.
Note that I am not saying that there
has never been anything good to come out of those places. For example, monks used to make copies of the
Scriptures in monasteries. But that
doesn’t negate the problems within them.
There are several things I blame for
the problems therein:
First, I blame the social structure of
these monasteries and convents to a large extent. These living conditions certainly provide an unnecessary
“occasion of sin,” as Catholics call it (Baltimore
Catechism #3, Lesson 18, Question 770-775).
Here, we have a bunch of unmarried men
(or women) who are celibate, with no chance to relieve sexual tension, while
living together in close quarters for long periods of time. Concerning these living conditions, someone
once so eloquently stated, “That just ain’t right!”
Secondly, they have a powerful Church
which is willing to cover up their sins of perversion for them by keeping their
crimes from the police, and then removing those offenders to another location
for a fresh start. Thus, they have an
incentive to continue in this perverse lifestyle. They know others around them in the same
convent/monastery are doing it, as well, so they all have a dirty little
secret, yet they are quietly protected by the Church. This, alone, tells us that the leaders in the
Catholic Church (including the pope) don’t care about the innocent lives that
are being destroyed.
Thirdly, to make matters worse, false
doctrine pervades not only monasteries and convents, but the Catholic Church as
a whole. No amount of magnificent
architecture, or well-meaning occupants, can make up for false doctrine. False doctrine is a curse that will destroy
eternal souls. If there is any doubt as
to whether there is false doctrine in the Catholic Church, see the multitude of
articles in this blog.
Are these Catholic convents and
monasteries considered sanctuaries – are they bastions of truth with biblical
principles – or are they cesspools of false doctrine and perversion? The answer is clear for those who have eyes
to see and ears to hear (Isaiah 6:10; Jeremiah 5:21; Matthew 13:15).
