Today is Monday, Sept, 15th, 2003, and here I sit sobbing as I try to find the words to write this article. I just don’t know how to start to describe all the feelings I have after watching the latest film by actor-writer-director, Peter Mullan, The Magdalene Sisters.

The film dramatizes the lives of young women inside forced-labor laundries in Ireland run by Roman Catholic nuns. An estimated 30,000 women toiled in nine such penitentiaries from the early 19th century until 1996, when the last of the laundries shut down in Dublin.

After reading so many reviews of the film, I could hardly wait to see it. I knew that the Vatican has denounced the film as “overblown and unfair”, even though the U.S. branch of the Sisters of Mercy issued an apology. Vatican’s daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano called the film “an angry and rancorous provocation” adding that it was "incautiously passed as a work of art".

Peter Mullan, in an interview with David Gritten, assures the viewer, “I’m more than happy to defend my film”. "The Church may look at my film and say these things never happened. But I'm not that good a dramatist. I couldn't have made it up. And there'll be people lining up to say it happened to them." "I heard terrible stories, stories far worse than the events depicted in the film," he says. "It got to me so deeply." Yet Mullan decided not to put the most extreme stories of abuse in the film: "If I put all the horrors in there, it may make me feel better, but you need to take the audience with you, and not completely turn them off. If nobody sees the film, I've lost the audience. I also didn't include the really awful stuff because the Church could come at me and say: 'It's lies, you exaggerated.' And I could say: 'No, I did the opposite'."

At a press conference, after Mullan’s film won the Golden Lion award for best picture, he likened the Magdalene nuns to “Taliban militants”. After all, for three years, Mullan had been backing the cause of women suffering under the Taliban: "We'd been exchanging e-mails, signing petitions, supporting benefits. The more I looked into the Magdalenes, there really seemed to be not that great a difference between them and the Taliban in terms of the treatment of women…."

There wasn’t a word of protest in Ireland, where nearly 90 percent of the population is Catholic. Perhaps it’s because of a decade of pedophile scandals and investigations into physical abuse at Catholic church-run industrial schools. "So many awful stories about the church have turned out to be true, you'd believe almost anything you heard about clerics and religious," said David Quinn, editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper in Dublin.

Historian Frances Finnegan, whose research on the Magdalene laundries inspired Mullan to make his film, said, "I did find the film depressing, but I'm so delighted that the subject is being aired so publicly, because it was very nearly swept under the carpet." . She tells of one case of a young woman sentenced for life for having a child out of wedlock. The child she gave up had grown up to become a fellow laundry worker. Neither of them knew it, but the nuns did! Finnegan noted that older residents had become "very institutionalized. Perhaps some were even happy to be there, because they believed they were guaranteed a place in heaven." When Mary Norris, age 70, saw the film, she couldn’t stop crying. She spent two years in the Magdalene asylums for sneaking away from her job twice to see a movie: "What hit me most was ... how they dehumanized us."

As you can imagine, with all this controversy and being a writer for Former Catholics For Christ and Cutting Edge Ministries, I anxiously sat at the Tinsel Town Cinema, with my sister, Diane, waiting to get the scoop on just what had happened. But nothing, and I mean nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see. There was no doubt that I was going to need all the tissues I had stuffed into my purse just for this moment.

The film follows the lives of three young girls, Bernadette, Rose and Margaret. Each one sent away to the laundry asylum for different reasons. Bernadette was sent because she was a pretty orphan who boys flirted with. Margaret is raped by her cousin and her father and the local priest conspire to have her put away. Rose just had a baby out of wedlock. She is forced to give away her baby and then locked away for good.

We are quickly made aware of the financial aspect of these asylums by the director, leaving no doubt that this was a money-making racket at the expense of thousands upon thousands of young women. Even if some were blessed enough to escape physically, there would be little chance they would escape the emotional and spiritual damage wreaked on them by the “Good Sisters of Mercy”.

Although Mullan does an excellent job of showing the sadistical, cruel, merciless and unbending spirit of the nuns, he even does a more excellent job of showing the spiritual oppression of the Catholic religion and their doctrine. It was for this oppression I cried the most. Had those girls only known the true Jesus, their physical bondage would have been more bearable. They would have been free in their spirit. Just one scripture, and their hope would not have been drained from them. Maybe Eph. 2:8-9:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Or maybe Titus 3:5:

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.”

But all they had was the lying gospel of Rome, the gospel where no one knows where they are going when they die, so they spend their whole lives in bondage to Rome hoping to find some shred of mercy from an angry God who had left them there to perish.

Although I cried throughout the whole film, my sister, Diane, didn’t shed a tear. She was angry. But then again, my sister always hated Roman Catholicism. She had figured that if the nuns were going to heaven, then she would rather be in hell. Her memories of the nuns at St. Paul’s Catholic school are those of being humiliated and abused. She recalls the time one nun had beaten her hands till they were bruised because she didn’t slant her letters to the right properly. My dad called the nun that night and said he had better never see marks like that again on her hands or he would come down there personally.

Diane’s opinion of the Catholic nuns was formed very early. In the first grade, the nun borrowed Diane’s favorite record, “Puff the Magic Dragon”. When Diane asked for it back, the nun told her it was missing. Diane saw her record with her name on it among the nun’s things. She pointed it out. The nun yelled at her and told her to sit down, that she no longer had a record and that what she thought she saw wasn’t really what she saw. She never trusted any of them after that.

Every morning before school, we had to attend Mass. On one occasion, a bird had gotten into the church. Diane started laughing when all of a sudden the nun furiously slapped her behind the head. She was only six years old, and already the abuse had begun. They called her “stupid” and humiliated her in front of the class. She recalls the story of one boy who wet his pants. The sister dragged the boy before the class making everyone laugh at him and shame him, then made him sit on a hot register for the rest of the day. Humiliating children was a common practice for the nuns at our school and Diane soon learned to hate them for it.

There are five of us children, and even though our stories of growing up in the Catholic church differ immensely, we all suffered some kind of abuse from the nuns and priests.

My brother, Paul also told me of how he was abused by one nun in particular. In the 6th grade, he was to do a report on the apostle Paul. We lived in a little town several miles from the school and the nearest library. When we did reports, we either used what books we had in the home or we waited to see if our dad got home in time to take us to the library. On this occasion, Paul could not get to the library, so he used a Protestant Bible to do his report on the apostle Paul. When it came time for him to read his report in front of the class, he heard the sister stomping towards him. He started shaking, not sure what to expect. When she finally reached him, she took the report out of his hand, crumbled it into a wad and shoved it in his mouth. He began to gag and spit the paper out on the floor. In a rage, she picked it up off the floor and shoved it back into his mouth saying, “Eat it!” Paul again spit the paper to the floor. She began to beat him across the face and back. He ran back to his seat in tears. He never understood why she did all those things to him until he was an adult. He now knows that he made the mistake of using the Protestant Bible.

Paul had always felt the nuns hated him. And, just as the film depicts the sadistic nature of the nuns in humiliating those who cross them, Paul had crossed the nuns too many times. You see, Paul was left-handed and this was unacceptable years ago. So they beat Paul all the time and tried to force him to use his right hand. As soon as they turned their backs, Paul would switch hands and continue to do his work. This attitude problem in my brother brought the wrath of the nuns. They demanded that my dad bring Paul to the convent to beat him in front of them. My dad obliged the nuns reluctantly. Paul described the faces of the nuns as my dad pulled off his belt and beat him. “I will never forget their faces, Becky. They smiled like they were saying ‘Ha, ha, ha’. Dad was so angry when he left, that he wouldn’t talk to me. He has never mentioned that day to me.” Paul was electrocuted when he was 20 years old. Twenty-thousand volts of electricity surged through his body five times. Eighty percent of his body was burned and he lost his right hand. Today, he lives in the mountains of Colorado with his wife and three children. When we discussed the subject of nuns, he quickly said he had one request. He wanted to stand before all those nuns who beat him for being left-handed and show them that he no longer had a right hand, and that God, in His wisdom, already knew that he needed to be left-handed.

My story of growing up Catholic is so different. I was obedient and tried to do everything the nuns told me. I was always very fearful of going to hell, so if they punished me, I accepted the punishment readily. However, my mother was not so gracious. On one occasion, I was kept after school as a punishment. Now it wouldn’t seem like such a big deal except I lived over four miles from the school. If I missed the bus, I would have to walk home, and I was only 11 years old. My mother feared that I would be kidnapped or hurt in some way. She called the nuns to find out why I had not come home on the bus. The sister told her that I was being punished. My mother became so enraged, that she told the sister “If anything happens to my daughter, I will hold you personally responsible. How dare you risk her life for a punishment.” That nun came looking for me and found me walking and made sure I got home. But be assured, that nun knew I lived in Greentown and that I had no way home. Her fear was for her own safety!

Nonetheless, I continued to follow the nuns and went on retreats to a convent in PA for three years in a row. Finally, I brought home papers to join the convent. You have to understand, that Rome brainwashes you to think that it is your duty to save everyone by your works. The more rosaries I said, the more Masses I attended, the more hope my dad and mom would have of going to heaven. I was willing to sacrifice myself for my dad, but I never told him that. So when I gave my dad the papers to sign for me to join the convent, he refused. Although I had to postpone my plans to become a nun till later, I promised God that as soon as I was 18, I would join the convent and no one would stop me.

The only thing that ever made me stop and think that I could be wrong about becoming a nun was two girls from Greentown. They both had left for the convent and no one had heard from them for years. Then, during Christmas time, they were permitted to visit their families. One girl went down to the basement, took a gun and killed herself. The other hung herself in her old bedroom. No one ever knew why. Although I began to have my doubts about the convent, I did not totally abandon the idea.

My family was too poor to afford to send me to a Catholic high school, so I had to settle for going to the public schools. The first time I stepped into the public school system, I noticed a difference from my Catholic school. Whereas everything seemed so dark and depressing it now seems light and warm. We had teachers that you could actually disagree with. The first time I heard a student argue with a teacher I was scared the student would be beat. Instead, they listened! The nuns never were like that. Whatsoever they said was final! Perhaps that’s why I cried so hard watching The Magdalene Sisters. It brought back all those memories that have long been buried along with all the oppressive Catholic doctrine and the hopelessness of their religion. Every time one of the Magdalene girls spoke out, they were beaten or punished in some horrible manner. We may not have seen it to the degree they did, but we saw it.

It’s hard to believe that it was only finally closed in Dublin by 1996. Of course, the “Sisters of Mercy” lost their hold in America a lot sooner, but that was only due to the bravery of Protestant ministers and our freedom of the press. But long before Peter Mullan and Frances Finnegan exposed the dark deeds of these Catholic laundry asylums, a newspaper known as The Menace exposed the Magdalene Sisters. It was 1912, when The Menace told of countless girls being tortured and starved, beaten and molested by nuns and priests. But as usual, anyone who dared speak out against Roman Catholicism paid the price. Rome labeled The Menace as “bigots” and “haters”, hoping to avert the public’s eye away from themselves, just as they done with Peter Mullan’s film by calling it “an angry and rancorous provocation”. But the story of one young woman had an impact on society and questions were being asked. The Menace published the story of a girl named Cecelia.

(From the Menace, No. 70, for August 17, 1912.) Some way, try as I may, I cannot forget her---I cannot forget those strange, dark eyes that glowed at times with a half-wild light as she told me of the horror, the blind terror and the shame of it all. The mass of inky black hair, the finely chiselled features, that rare ivory complexion---all spoke of a beauty that might have been an artist's dream were it not for that indefinable, elusive marring. Before me sat Cecilia. Beyond that (her convent name) let her be nameless here evermore. Why? Because Cecelia is no myth, no figment of the imagination, I pass her on the streets here every day or two, and then I look carefully straight ahead. In this city but a few years ago---Ah! so few!---she was a tiny girl, here it was that the iron hand of Rome clutched her, then here it was that the garish lights shone on her by night---a Magdalene! And here it was that God sent to her a noble woman, one who had been with the Christ and who had learned of Him, one whose own suffering had given her a supreme, motherly love and a sisterly understanding of the sorrows of even the Soiled Sisterhood----a social worker who just put her arms in silence around Cecelia and the battle for the redemption of a life was on!

And it was through this Christ-like woman that I learned all about Cecelia, she it was that first told me the pitiful, the awful story of just another of the myriad thousands of girl-lives marred and exploited, wrecked and ruined by Rome in her countless "Houses of the Good Shepherd." And when she had finished there was hardly a detail missing from the unspeakably sad story of Cecelia's life---and most pitiful of all to me seemed the bitter story of the yellow silk kimono---how, that after having been "committed" to Price Hill "Sweatshop of the She-Slavers" Cecelia, dirty, filthy, vermin-infested and near to death from neglect, nameless cruelties and overwork was sent to a hospital and afterwards gathering the little strength left in her emaciated girl-body by a supreme effort, escaped. How she finally went to the only girl friend she had in this great city, an inmate of a house of the scarlet light on Georgia street. And how that here her one friend, the Magdalene, shared her own dinner with the starving Cecelia and afterwards threw around her wasted form a gorgeous yellow silk kimono that had been flung over a chair, to hide her rags. How that then in answer to her question as to how she could live and escape her relentless Roman task-masters, the soiled sister could only suggest that she remain her guest till she had recovered health and strength, and then that Cecelia continue to wear the yellow silk kimono---the garb of sinful shame where the only blushes are painted ones and hollow laughter and ribald song drown the bells of conscience.

How that Cecelia, gripped in the terrible hands of Want and Hunger and Fear, stayed! Then the world-old story of nameless disease and dissipation unthinkable until sick unto death, weary of life---wanting, yes, longing to die---she found herself one night close-held in the strong arms of this sweet, tactful friend, who, understanding and weeping with her, yet shrank not away as Cecelia sobbed out the story of her pitiful, exploited, bizarre life. And, radiant with heavenly hope and sacred joy the beautiful part of the story just here told of Cecelia's long sojourn in the home of her rescuer, while life and strength in some measure returned to the wasted, tempest-tossed body. "I was a stranger and ye took me in!" And how one Sunday evening, in one of the great churches of this city, Cecelia heard that wonderous story of the Prodigal, and during the invitation at the close whispered brokenly through her tears the question to her benefactress; "Do you think he means me, even me---Oh, can there be any hope for such a sinner as I am?" And that evening of blessed memory, to her the gentle Man of Galilee came to be the dream of her life. Then soon after she was baptized into the fold of that great church of the simple faith.

All this passed through my mind in rapid review as we sat in the private office of my friend, the doctor, as I waited in silence for her reply to my question. "And so, Cecelia, you have really come to tell me---almost a stranger---the story of your life?" And I gazed curiously, if kindly, at her as she sat there before me---I can see her again as I write, clad in a trim, tailored suit of dark blue, rather slender of build, only nineteen years old, yet having suffered, Ah! so supremely!

There was a pause---then she answered rather hesitatingly in a low tone, "Yes, sir---that is, I understood from what you said the other day that you were more especially interested in my experiences in the 'House of the Good Shepherd,' as they call it, on Price Hill." As I answered I was thinking of the beauty of her voice---a voice pitched low and of a curiously compelling, contralto tone. "Yes," I said, "tell me about that first. I know the rest of your sad life. And now to help you I will ask you a few questions so you can tell me just the things The Menace readers want to know. I have been through this Price Hill convent, you know, so I will understand most of what you tell me. How old were you when you were sent there?"

"I do not remember exactly, I was only a little girl," answered reflectively, "perhaps I was twelve---not any older I am sure."

"And were your parents Catholic?"

"No, indeed," and as she spoke she leaned forward impulsively, "I was committed to that Hell-on-earth because I was just a homeless, half-starved waif of a girl, without any one to care! Why I---" but here I quietly interrupted. "Gently,---gently, now, Miss Cecelia, I know these memories are awful to you, but let me ask a question. You say that you were just a little girl---now these small school rooms I saw, are they not where the little girls and the larger girls attend school?"

"No!" And the black eyes were shining now as Cecelia added, "Those are not really school rooms---that is where the little tots---girls too young to work---are taught the 'catechism' and some more Catholic bosh! Perhaps you don't understand that no matter how young a girl is when she is jailed there she never gets any education, if she has had no schooling when she goes in she has less when she comes out---that is, if she ever gets out. Why, they have many old women in that Price Hill convent that have been there all their lives in slavery just because there was nobody that cared or else their folks never knew where they were!"

"Tell me something about every day life and the food," I said, seeing that memory had thoroughly aroused her.

"I don't know why I am telling you all this or why it is that I want to, because I've always been afraid to talk about it, before, but I'm going to tell you all about it," she said, glancing toward the door, and continuing---"We were called at five o'clock in the morning and at half past five we must be dressed, have our beds made, and be ready to go down to breakfast, such as it was." "And what did you have for breakfast, Cecelia?"

"Oatmeal with a little blue milk, but no sugar, two thin slices of stale bread and a cup of 'chicory' coffee! You see, everything is dished up in portions there and each girl gets her little portion, no more. Why, the girls that have been used to decent food nearly starve to death when they first go there, but finally they all have to get used to their prison fare!"

"Then I understand that after breakfast the girls all go to the chapel for worship---tell me something about the worship," I said suggestively.

"Worship!" And there were volumes of meaning in the tone in which she repeated the word---"Worship," she continued, "you mean 'mass,' at a quarter till six all the girls are marched into chapel to that terror called 'mass---' say, did you ever try kneeling a whole hour at a time? Well, that's what 'mass' meant to us poor girls, and every morning too!

"Then at seven o'clock we were marched through that long, long, dark, cement, underground tunnel to work in the 'Bank Street Laundry' or else on Rauh & Mack's machines in that sweatshop shirt factory or making overalls or jackets on those awful power machines or making shoulder braces, and there we worked like slaves till noon and then---" Cecelia's voice was growing sharper, in the black eyes that met mine with level glance there was a look not good to see.

"Yes, and then?" I asked softly, intent on watching a little bird perched in the sunshine on the cornice of the roof of the huge building across the street.

"Why then we were marched back to a dinner of 'stew' or 'slum' ('slum' is short for slumgullion),---now, Mr. Buss, this may not sound pretty but it's the truth, that slop is a mixture of scraps of refuse meat and 'come backs' from cheap hotels and restaurants that they gather by begging all over the city. You know they beg nearly all the stuff they feed these girl prisoners on.

"After 'dinner' we were taken up to the 'recreation room' after some more prayer we sat on the chairs there and were allowed to talk until one o'clock, then we were taken back to work."

"And when the day's work done, Cecelia?" I asked.

"Well, you see, each girl has a task or 'stent,' that is a certain amount of work that she must finish before quitting time, that is, six o'clock. And at half past five o'clock every evening the 'sisters' in charge go around and inspect the girls' work to see if each has finished her task. And, on the piece work in the laundry and in the shirt room and in the overalls room the number of pieces each girl must do is so awfully large that no girl dares to stop to even look up. Why I know girls---"

"But Cecelia," I interrupted, "these 'sisters' all claim that they are not even allowed to touch the girls to punish them, then why should these girls toil and slave so hard at their tasks if no one is allowed to punish them?"

Suddenly she arose and began to pace the room nervously as she talked. "That's just what I was going to tell you about. I started to say that I know girls that those heartless, cruel old 'sisters' nearly beat to death!"

Cecelia paused just before me and her face was very white as she went on, her voice low and tense. "One poor girl just refused to do the task they had set for her---the 'sisters' broke a broom handle across her back! Oh! No, 'they are not allowed to touch the girls!' Why sometimes at night I can hear the girls yell and groan yet! I just want to tell you of one whipping I got there, they whipped me with a rattan once until I was laid in bed so sore I could hardly move. Next day my mother came to see me.

"One of the 'sisters' came in and said, 'Cecelia, get up and dress, dear, and come down stairs with me. Your mother is waiting to see you. And listen, dear, if you tell your mother anything or show her one mark on your body, we will whip you again till you can't walk! Of course, mother never knew!

"Oh, Mr. Buss, you folks don't know the misery and Hell there is behind those walls! You told about how when you went through that laundry a few girls were sitting around reading and crocheting. I am glad you were not deceived by these things they fixed up for you to see. But you don't know how hard nor how late those girls had to work to make up for the time they shut down for your visit, do you? And you don't know how cross and spiteful those 'sisters' were after you had left---how they slapped those poor girls around, or how many went to bed without any mush and milk (that's what we had for supper)---but I can guess; you see I've been through it all."

Cecelia sat down again, and leaning her head on her hand regarded me steadily. I noticed that though her eyes were tearless her lips were twitching. She seemed waiting for a reply. Finally I said, "Cecelia, if I tell The Menace readers and the world all these things I wonder if they will believe us?" (Slaves of the Godsmith, H. George Buss) [This book can be read online at: http://www.oocities.org/visplace/godsmith.htm]

Do you remember what Peter Mullan said: “I also didn't include the really awful stuff because the Church could come at me and say: 'It's lies, you exaggerated.' And I could say: 'No, I did the opposite'." The Menace feared the same thing,, “...will they believe us?” And they did the same thing...they excluded the worst parts!

Cecelia’s story was read by one young lady, Dorothy Nichols. Dorothy escaped from the Sisters of Mercy and fled to The Menace. She wanted to tell her story also:

Dorothy Nickols came all the way from Minneapolis, Minn., to The Menace office in Aurora to tell the story of a life filled with sorrow by the unspeakable cruelty of Romish devotees---a cruelty that is sleepless, dark and relentless as the grave. And she came honestly---working by the way to pay her expenses on the trip---and she came voluntarily, she came to tell this sad story to The Menace, not in a spirit of vengefulness, but that through giving to our readers plain pictures of the awful conditions that exist behind those grim stone walls and ever locked doors of Chicago's greatest penal convent, she may help in our battle to liberate those thousands of helpless captives.

And there is another motive impelling her to want you to know this story. Dorothy Nichols is still young, only twenty-two years old. She has the same ambition with which God has blessed us all. Above all things she longs to succeed in life---to succeed in Miss Nichols is a very interesting young lady. In spite of the suffering that has been inflicted upon her. Miss Dorothy is not gloomy or morose, but happy and cheery and very hopeful in disposition. The artist has given us a striking likeness in the portrait which we reproduce herewith.

Miss Nichols was born in St. Louis, but has resided in Chicago since infancy. There she spent her girlhood days. And the pity of it! most of those girlhood days were spent in a penal servitude to Rome! Dorothy's father was a Protestant, her mother an Irish Catholic. From her babyhood Romanism was instilled into Dorothy's very life. There were three children in the family, a brother, George, two years younger than Dorothy, and a sister, Mary Nichols, three years older.

In 1903 poverty overtook the family as the result of the father's long sickness, and the home was broken up. Mary Nichols went to live with a family of devout Irish Catholics in Chicago, the brother, George, remained with the mother, while Dorothy was sent to live with a family named Holm, at Shabonna, Ill. who were old friends of her mother.

So, on the fifteenth of September, 1903, the little girl arrived in her new home. At this time Dorothy was nearly thirteen years old. And what a home! John Holm and his wife were Germans of the most ignorant, vicious type. With them lived an adopted daughter, Alice, who was at this time twenty-one years of age. This home was near a railroad "roundhouse" and was a daily and nightly resort for railroad men!

John Holm proved as brutish as he was ignorant. For four months following her arrival Dorothy was subjected to almost every indignity and familiarity at his hands.

Finally, one day when alone in the house with the little girl who had been placed in his home for protection. John Holm accomplished his hellish objects, after horsewhipping and overpowering little Dorothy. This took place on the twenty-first day of January, 1904.

That evening Dorothy ran across the street to the home of a neighbor, a Mrs. Schermerhorn, and told her terrible story. Horrified at the tell-tale marks of violence, Mrs. Schermerhorn called in her sister, a Mrs. Wormeley, who lived next door.

The state's attorney at De Kalb, Ill., was notified and the next day Dorothy was examined by a doctor, and John Holm was arrested and lodged in jail at Sycamore, Ill., and the case was brought before the grand jury. In the meantime, Dorothy was given shelter by the neighbors who had befriended her. At this time there was strong talk of lynching Holm.

It is self-evident that a goodly sum of money was raised among the frequenters of the Holm resort to protect this unsavory brute, for just at this juncture the inevitable priest arrived on the scene. This particular priest was no other than "Father" Finn, of Rochelle, Ill., with whom William Lloyd Clark debated at Rochelle, April 15th, 1896 ( see William Lloyd Clark's booklet, "The Great Debate," page 18).

And so the Catholic drag-net was tightened around another little victim. Convent doors are ever yawning to engulf in the blackness beyond all the slimy secrets of inhuman lust, provided, of course, that the rapist, murderer or seductionist can offer financial inducements. So, "Father" Finn showed some bogus papers, that he claimed gave Dorothy into his authority and dragged her away from her friends at Rochelle, Ill., where he placed her in a private family as a kitchen scullion. Here she was safely kept until the first week of the following June. During this time "Father" Finn carried on a daily campaign of bullying and threatening the helpless little girl and at last he frightened Dorothy into signing a statement exonerating John Holm!

Let us remember that Dorothy was but a little child, that she was born and bred a Catholic, and that to her terrified mind her very soul was in the hands of the priest. John Holm and the adopted daughter migrated to Aurora, Ill., where this unspeakable brute was living in safety and security but recently!

But Rome's diabolical plot, the imprisoning web of the convent spiders, had only just begun. With the devilish cunning of the elementary animal brain that leered out of the priest's little pig-like eyes, "Father" Finn, with satisfied smirk, now informed Dorothy that the next week she could go back to her mother in Chicago. This filled her childish heart with joy. But when finally the great day of "home-coming" arrived she was puzzled to find that two strangers accompanied her on the journey and that she was carefully guarded on the way.

At the station in Chicago they were met by a Catholic probation officer named Cronin who explained to Dorothy that he would take her to her mother. But instead, Cronin took her to the court house where an old maid, Miss Curtin, another probation officer, took charge of the little girl on her "homeward" way. They boarded a street car and rode within a block of Dorothy's former home. On leaving the car Dorothy joyfully turned toward the home, only to be roughly jerked backward with the explanation, "Your mother has moved!"

After walking two blocks, Dorothy, at the direction of her black-garbed guide, crossed the street and they walked along the high-board fence surrounding the Chicago's old (or former) "House of Good Shepherd," on Orleans street, between Hill and Elm. Turning in and passing through the gateway the outer door swung quickly open and in a few hurried moments Dorothy found herself amidst a dark, forbidding interior, with three doors locked between her and the street! Confronting the now frightened and wondering child was a brawny nun at whose side hung a huge bunch of keys; bursting into tears Dorothy sobbingly asked, "But---but-----isn't this----a place------for bad girls?"

Answered the burly man scornfully, "Yes, and that's just why you are here!" Then seizing frail little Dorothy by the shoulders this female child-slaver shook her viciously and roughly flung her headlong into a far corner of the room, where she huddled, a badly bruised bit of humanity. Several coarse-featured, scowling nuns had now gathered around the hysterical Dorothy. Kneeling before her jailers, the little captive begged them to tell her what she had done that was so bad, and put up the pitiful plea that she had "always----tried----to----be----good." For this the nun who had admitted her, struck the child a stunning blow with the huge bunch of keys, the while another over-grown nun soundly boxed the helpless Dorothy's ears, while a third nun to whose black robe she was clinging brutally jerked her to her feet, saying, "Get up, get up---we'll have no stage performances here!" And that was the "Good Shepherd's" reception of Dorothy at the hands of His "doves of the temple!"

"I hardly have the heart even now to tell you of some of the terrible things and the awful conditions behind the walls of both of the Chicago 'Houses of Good Shepherd,' I mean the old one and the new. You see I was a prisoner in both. I have read that story in The Menace of 'Cecelia and the Yellow Silk Kimono,' and like thousands of other girls who have been victims of Catholic convent slavery, I can say that every word of it is true. Only Cecelia didn't tell all she knew."

We were seated in The Menace office, Dorothy Nichols and the writer. From the great outer business office arose the subdued hum of the busy workers, the drowsy drone of the huge perfecting Goss presses came to me faintly, as I answered---"No, Miss Dorothy, the truth is that Cecelia told much that we did not print for decency's sake---but tell us something of your every day life in those Chicago penal convents---the food, clothing, sanitary conditions, the work you were forced to do, anything of interest that you remember."

Well, I was simply kidnapped and "railroaded" as they say, into these convent-prisons without ever being in court or before a judge, and without a single chance to gain my freedom," continued Dorothy, "and there I was kept a prisoner for nearly three years.

"In the first place, you must realize that you can never fully understand this 'Good Shepherd' convent system unless you have lived in one of their 'houses' and could see the every day life there from the inside. For instance, just to show you the system by which they are able to deceive the outsider, suppose that visitors arrive to go through the institution. If these visitors could only see what goes on quickly and silently while they are being 'entertained' in the parlor, how their eyes would be opened."

And Dorothy's own fine blue yes were very earnest as she continued: "Instantly there is a great hustle and hurry in all the different departments, while the scenes are being shifted and the 'tableaux' are arranged. Long practice has made the nuns expert and swift. Every girl must appear contented and happy. Every nun in charge of a class rings a bell and all the girls are herded and thrown into a class-room pell-mell, helter-skelter. The nuns and the 'old girls' (or stool pigeons) stand at the door pushing, crowding and shoving the girl-prisoners into the rooms headlong. Chairs are arranged in apple-pie order, while aprons are passed out to the girls, brushes are given out and every girl's hair is hurriedly smoothed back, order comes out of seeming chaos, and in a few moments all the girls are demurely seated, trying to appear happy. Embroidery, needle-work, and even musical instruments are given the girls. Then the nun in charge of each class makes a little speech warning the girls that one word or look that would arouse the visitor's suspicion will mean the 'cat-o-nine-tails!

"Then the unsuspecting visitors are ushered in, and they exclaim, 'Oh! How perfectly lovely; how sweet and contented! Little girl, you ought to be happy with such a nice home and these sweet 'sisters' to mother you!' to some poor girl who hasn't had a real meal for two or three years and who can't lay straight at night on her poor, little corn-husk mattress because her flesh is all cut to pieces from the cruel thongs in the hands of the 'sweet sisters!'"

"Tell us about this 'cat-o-nine-tails' you spoke of, and about some of the punishments inflicted on the girls," I suggested.

That is the worst punishment, I mean the most brutal, that is inflicted in the Chicago 'House of Good Shepherd,'" said Dorothy. "It is just what the name indicates. This is the punishment usually for saying things to visitors in the parlor detrimental to the institution or for impudence to a nun. The nuns, assisted by the 'old girls' (trusties or stool-pigeons), strip the offender and throw her naked upon the bed, where she is held outstretched while the nun lashes her bare flesh till it is raw and bleeding and the nun is tired and exhausted. The whip used consists of a leather handle and nine long, keen lashes---this is called the 'cat-o-nine-tails.' Each lash leaves a bleeding welt, nine long, bloody cuts every time a blow is struck with it! There were a number of other and more ordinary punishments, such as pounding the girl's across the bare knuckles with sharp edge of a two-foot hard rubber ruler, depriving the poor girls of food, and starving them into subjection.

"And such food as it was! Ugh!" And Dorothy shuddered at the recollection. "In the old Chicago 'House of Good Shepherd' there were about three hundred girls, in the new one, to which we were moved in the spring of 1906, a thousand girls were imprisoned---this, like the other, was only a great penal 'sweatshop' filled with power sewing machines, under-fed, unpaid girl-slaves---and misery. Our food was exactly as described by 'Cecelia,' slops, refuse, garbage, and 'comebacks' bagged over the city by the nuns. Not only that, but as a usual thing this nasty, unsavory mess was actually alive with cock-roaches! Meat was a rarity, but occasionally some Catholic grocer or butcher would donate some spoiled or decaying meat to the 'sisters'---for 'sweet charity's sake'---and I have often seen white maggots crawling over our meat---it was fairly alive with them!

"On Catholic 'feast days' we usually had a treat of jelly donated by some of the wholesale houses---always with the reasons for the 'charity' crawling through it in the form of ants---or else one would find the reason in the smell!

"But I remember twice that we girls had a real treat---" and Dorothy laughed in reminiscent glee, "and someone you have read about was to blame---or should be thanked?---for it, too. It was 'Priest' F. J. Barry, chancellor of the archdiocese of Chicago. I was reading his record in 'Father' Crowley's book, 'Romanism, A Menace to the Nation,' just the other day. Mr. Crowley rightly describes this priest, Barry, as a drunkard, gambler, and several other unmentionable things. If your readers will turn to pages 47, 63 and 443 of Mr. Crowley's book they can read this priest's history for themselves. I remember that he is named on page 47, and also appears as 'No. 24' in Mr. Crowley's list of unsavory and criminal priests.

"Now, this 'Priest' and 'Mother' Josephine, the nun in charge of our class, cordially hated each other, and Barry delighted in playing practical jokes on her. The other nuns were all in love with Barry and helped him outwit her whenever possible. I remember him quite well, as he was a constant visitor at the 'House of Good Shepherd.'

"At the old 'house' there was a small lot of grass that was more than sacred. This teeny lawn was the apple of 'Mother' Josephine's eye. I remember it was guarded by a sign, 'Keep off the grass,' though no girl would have dared to so much as set foot on it. One day 'Priest' Barry came out to visit the nuns in his usual hilarious condition. By some trick this wily priest had gotten his old-time enemy, 'Mother' Josephine, off the scene and had two men take a barrel of nice, ripe apples up to the nuns' balcony above the sacred plot of grass. During the 'recreation period,' when all the girls were on the walks below, 'Priest' Barry suddenly emptied the barrel of apples into the grass shouting lustily, 'Go to it girls, help yourselves!' Well, no second invitation was needed and after the half starved throng of girls had scrambled madly after the apples you can imagine what the grass looked like!

"But that afternoon and evening came the aftermath! We girls did 'penance' till we wished we had never seen an apple. But the 'priest' had scored one on 'Mother' Josephine.

"One Christmas eve this same 'Priest' Barry came out to the 'House of Good Shepherd,' to sing 'mass'--- you know the Catholics have 'midnight mass' Christmas eve, really three 'masses'," two 'low' and one 'high'---and Barry was in great demand because of his splendid voice. But too much 'celebration' overcame him on this occasion and he fell asleep at the altar, and one of the nuns finished the service for him, and the 'altar boys' carried him out!"

"You ask me to tell you something of the cleanliness and sanitary conditions of these Chicago penal convents, falsely called 'Houses of the Good Shepherd,' where I was imprisoned. There is much that I cannot tell but there is one condition that will give you some idea of the rest. In summer the girls were required to bathe once every week, in winter once in two weeks. Here is a very choice bit of Catholic economy; in the old convent the water was only changed for every seventh girl, in the new one the nuns were more liberal and changed the water for every fourth girl! Water costs money, you know, in the city. Many of the girls were the victims of awful and nameless diseases---and the danger of infection in bathing was something dreadful.

"At bathing time an 'old girl,' or stool-pigeon, was in charge of the tubs and examined all the girls' underwear for symptoms of weakness; when such symptoms were found, instead of medical attention the unfortunate victim received severe punishment for alleged 'impurity' or immorality.'"

Dorothy paused and I asked her to tell me frankly and fully what she considered the cause of the almost universal downfall of the girl prisoners after they are released from the "Good Shepherd" convents---to tell for The Menace what that hitherto unprinted condition or teaching is in these penal convents that wrecks and almost ruins the future life of the victim.

"The real answer to your question is well known to every girl or woman who has ever been an inmate of these 'Houses of the Good Shepherd,' but few ever speak of it because---Oh, well, because it is a very delicate subject, and then it would usually bring nothing but suspicion upon the girl who would tell of this awful thing. And few would perhaps believe her; so the victims suffer silently," answered Dorothy sadly, then I saw the light of sudden resolve in her eyes and she continued frankly: "I sometimes think that if the angels can see the ruin and wretchedness here below, they must weep when they see these girl-lives wrecked by thousands every year by the devilish teaching of the unmentionable habit by those she-demons in nun's garb, those 'Sisters of the Good Shepherd!'"

"But, Miss Dorothy, do you realize that what you are saying is a terrible----an awful thing---do you mean to say---?" "Yes, a thousand times yes!" And so, her tones growing even more earnest, calmly and carefully choosing each word, Dorothy continued her exposure of the systematic, cunning and deliberate teaching of ____ _____ to all the little girls under their charge by these depraved nuns.

She described to me, that the vast army of Menace readers might know the terrible truth, how every evening after the children had gone to bed, from forty to sixty little girls in each dormitory in little, single beds crowded close together, furnished with corn-shuck mattresses, after the lights were out these white garbed harpies came silently gliding through, specter-like, scanning each small, girlish form with cold, cruel hawk-eyes. The most powerful of all teaching is that given in the form of suggestion. And the nuns display the cunning of Hell itself in their awful teaching that wrecks mind and body!

And in that little mind this suggestive seed was forever sown, the seed of suggestion that can never die---and Oh! the harvest of corruption, of ruin!---and the victims, how old were they? Little sisters seven and eight years old! Far kinder that the hand of the nun should have split the little skull wide open with an ax!

Dorothy explained the two-fold reason for this teaching; that those inmates who must be liberated, depraved in body and mind, may find shipwreck in the "red-light" districts in so finally be forced back to these penal "Houses of the Good Shepherd," then as 'Magdalenes'---or that thus with senses dulled and the power of decision wrecked---the poor victims will be content to remain in the convent year after year, so becoming what is there called an "old girl." Dorothy explains that an "old girl" is one who voluntarily remains and is used by the nuns as a sort of "trusty" or "stool pigeon." The "Good Shepherd" nuns grant numberless little favors to the "old girls," and they are better fed and better dressed than the others. They become quite content with their lot. They are all of course slaves to that indescribable habit which usually ends with the grave. Dorothy has talked with numbers of these "old girls" about their condition, asking them if all their natural instincts were dead, if they had no desire for a home, for loved ones, for a better life, and she says in every instance the answer is summed up in the following reply of one of these "old girls," who said, "Why, of course I'd rather be here than anywhere else. I couldn't love any man now, even if I was married to him!"

Because of the lack of space, I have been forced to condense this story and give only the briefest sketch of the experiences of Dorothy Nichols in the Chicago "House of the Good Shepherd." In passing, it is interesting to note that this Chicago "House of the Good Shepherd" is rated and known among the Catholic "faithful" as the best convent of its class in America. If so, God have mercy on the others! (Slaves of the Godsmith, 1913, H. George Buss)

I highly recommend that every Christian duped into thinking Catholicism is “Christian”….please, please...go see this film. It will forever make an impression on your hearts. Mullan really brings the heart of Catholicism to the forefront. Their fear of hell and their fear of the Roman hierarchy, which is the heart of Catholic doctrine, will grip your very soul. Then perhaps you will pity the poor Catholic who is forbidden to know where he/she is going when they die. For them, it is the “sin of presumption” to believe you are saved merely by believing that Jesus paid the price once for all for their sins. They are brainwashed into believing that somehow if they do enough good, it may outweigh the bad they have done and with suffering and penance, and most likely purgatory, they may one day get to heaven. What a sad gospel to preach. If you think Rome is done abusing and destroying lives, think again. Remember, even though the Magdalene sisters had been exposed in America in 1912, it wasn’t until 1996 that Dublin finally closed the doors on these places! Why so long? Why wouldn’t the people listen? Why are they still not listening?

By Rebecca A. Sexton