In art and in life, nuns finally get their due

THE WASHINGTON POST
By Melinda Henneberger

WASHINGTON, DC - On Wednesday, the Vatican announced a crackdown on American nuns, charging the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents most of the country’s 57,000 women religious, with falling prey to “radical feminism’’ and falling out of step with church teaching on women’s ordination and homosexuality.

The response from the general public was enormous and overwhelmingly sympathetic to the sisters. Not so long ago, Catholic nuns were routinely written off — and in popular culture, written up, as sharp-eyed meanies armed with rulers who paced their classrooms meting out punishment and sowing self-doubt. ...they are no longer unthanked or unsung. Now the view of women religious, in both art and life, is typically far more admiring: The unheeded heroine of John Patrick Shanley’s play and movie “Doubt,” Sister Aloysius, for instance, tries to get out in front of what looks to her like the signs of sex abuse by a parish priest. And the HBO documentary “God is the Bigger Elvis,’’ a respectful treatment of Hollywood star Dolores Hart’s decision to become a cloistered nun, was even nominated for an Oscar this year. [link]