0:03

From a cocoa punch and I heart radio. This

0:05

is the turning I'm Erica Lance, Part

0:08

nine, Highway of Broken

0:10

Glass. Over

0:17

the time I've worked on this podcast, one

0:19

word has come up again and again. It

0:22

was like a cult thing. If you look at

0:24

the characteristics of cults, it's like

0:26

unswerving obedience to a

0:29

charismatic leader. Check one doesn't

0:32

always know where to draw the line between religion

0:34

and cult. You're only getting input

0:37

from one source. You're oscillated

0:39

from everyone else. And that's

0:42

what I mean by Brian washing, and

0:44

that's why it sometimes reminds

0:46

me of a cult. I

0:49

tried to leave the word called out of conversations

0:51

with former sisters, or at

0:53

least not be the one to bring it up first. My

0:56

fear was that once that word was on the table,

0:59

it would say the Sisters retelling of their

1:01

time in the MCS. But

1:03

the comparisons kept coming up, for

1:06

example, control over media,

1:09

how the missionaries of charity are only allowed to

1:11

read books that their mistress assigns to them.

1:13

He couldn't read the newspaper, he had the radio,

1:17

anything like that. We weren't

1:19

supposed to be looking around at

1:21

anything, really, And that was called

1:23

keeping custody of the eyes. Another

1:27

example, sisters are cut off

1:29

from their families and past lives. I

1:31

didn't know that I'd only get to write a letter home

1:34

once a month. I didn't know that I'd only

1:36

get to visit my family once every ten years.

1:38

I had no idea about all of that limited

1:40

sleep. I've heard so many sisters

1:43

mentioned the late nights and early mornings, always

1:45

waking at four forty am, which

1:47

might impact a person's ability to think critically.

1:50

Early morning meditation was a struggle. I

1:53

was always tired as a missionary

1:55

of charity, and so most

1:58

of that half hour very off, And not

2:00

always, but very often, it's just a struggle to

2:02

stay awake. Sisters were seeing

2:04

us more holy. If you needed less sleep, you

2:07

were strong. You could take a

2:09

lot of physical pain and not complain and

2:12

offer it up. There was whether

2:14

it was conscious or not. There was a lot of value

2:16

put on that. And every day we scrubbed

2:19

the same patch of floor for half an hour, and

2:22

I was exhausted, and I remember

2:24

thinking I couldn't used that extra

2:26

half hour of sleep instead

2:29

of scrubbing the same piece of floor that

2:31

was clean every morning. Then

2:34

there's the claim that the MC has kept sisters

2:36

from thinking for themselves. The order

2:41

was wired that

2:43

you had very little time to think,

2:47

and the rules a rigid enforcement

2:49

of rules. Mary Johnson

2:51

says that as she rose through the ranks, she was

2:54

told by a superior that she should be more firm

2:56

with sisters under her. For

2:58

example, if a sister fell asleep during

3:00

meditation, Mary should take the sister

3:02

to the kitchen, cut an onion and

3:04

make the sister put its juice in her eyes. Do

3:10

you think you were in a cult? I think

3:12

we had could to tendencies.

3:14

This is my personal opinion. Obviously, I

3:17

think to be an occult, the leader

3:19

has to have clarity of

3:21

what they're doing. And

3:23

I definitely, unequivocally

3:26

do not believe that was the purpose.

3:29

Like I believe some of the outcomes

3:32

happened, um,

3:35

but no, I definitely that's the That would

3:37

be the only reason I wouldn't think we were in

3:39

a cult. That I was in a cult. Do

3:41

I think people who come out of

3:43

it need help d

3:46

programming on some levels? Absolutely?

3:50

Clearly it's complicated. So

3:53

when people ask me outright, are the

3:55

missionaries of charity occult? I

3:57

don't have an answer. I'm

3:59

not exactly sure what a cult is. And

4:02

I'm even hesitant to use that word

4:04

just because it's a charged word. This

4:07

is Alan Lance Lesser. She's a producer

4:09

on this show, and you might remember she's my sister.

4:12

And she dug into this question, what is

4:14

a cult? Do the m c s qualify?

4:16

And this is the first time I'm hearing what she learned. So

4:20

I reached out to a cult expert, a

4:23

sociologist named Dr Yania

4:26

Lolledg. She's written books on it, She's

4:28

researched it. I mean, I was in a cult

4:30

myself, and so for years I wanted

4:33

to leave, but I couldn't figure out how to leave.

4:35

Oh and she says she was in a Marxist

4:38

Leninist fan guard party cult. Oh

4:41

wow. But eventually it was dissolved

4:44

and so in the end we all

4:46

got out at the same time. Right,

4:50

when you've so internalized the

4:53

belief system, it becomes

4:55

very difficult to leave because you know

4:57

you doubt yourself. When you have

5:00

of these thoughts, you have negative thoughts,

5:02

you have to immediately shut them away

5:04

because first of all, there's no way

5:06

to talk about them, there's no way

5:08

to entertain those ideas. And

5:11

you're also at the same time

5:13

kind of chastising yourself or even

5:15

having those ideas and thinking

5:18

that you know, there's something wrong with you,

5:20

that you're you're not being as good

5:22

a true believer as everyone else. That

5:25

sounds familiar. That almost

5:27

perfectly describes a number

5:30

of former sisters we interviewed. How they felt, Yeah,

5:32

that feeling of am I alone

5:35

in these questions or doubts. And

5:37

also they're not able to have personal

5:39

conversations with their fellow sisters, so they think that

5:42

I'm just the problem child. Yeah,

5:44

and you didn't talk about why people left.

5:47

Oh, yeah, So I described the basics

5:49

to her, how the sisters are extreme in their

5:52

vows, how sisters joined the order not

5:54

knowing what it really entails, the

5:56

emphasis on suffering for the sake of salvation,

6:00

you know, the limited contact with the outside world.

6:02

It sounds like you're told to me, I

6:05

mean, it's obviously very extreme

6:07

and using techniques that really

6:10

break a person down, which is what happens

6:12

and call Yeah that doesn't

6:14

sound good. Wow,

6:18

Yeah, that's that's not what I

6:20

think I expected to hear her start with. To

6:23

me, this would certainly fit a lot

6:25

of the criteria of being a cult.

6:28

So what are the criteria for a cult? Basically,

6:30

there are three criteria she mentioned off the bat

6:33

well. First of all, there's the the authoritarian

6:36

leader who demands all

6:38

loyalty, who cannot be questioned, who

6:40

cannot be criticized. There aren't any

6:42

checks and balances on that person, and whatever

6:45

they say kind of goes. Second,

6:48

there's a structured sort of belief

6:50

system, sort of what I call a

6:52

transcendent belief system, which gives you

6:55

the answers to everything past, present,

6:57

in future. That belief system

6:59

will go I do, and requires

7:02

of self transformation to allow

7:05

you to be on that path. And

7:07

then third, basically

7:10

there are these strategies

7:13

that are in place to reinforce the

7:16

indoctrination and basically keep

7:18

you in the group and keep you isolated

7:20

from the outside world. I mean,

7:23

there are examples of this in the MCS, like

7:25

the fact that you can only write home once a month.

7:27

You're not supposed to really talk about your

7:29

time inside. One thing that strikes

7:31

me, for example, with the first one is authoritarian

7:35

leader. Like the word authoritarian

7:37

sounds so negative, and

7:41

I know, I don't think the average person

7:43

would think, oh, mother Teresa as an authoritarian

7:45

leader. Um, it is true that she

7:47

said the rules for the order, and anyone that

7:49

was a superior had power without checks and balances,

7:52

So maybe it is an accurate description.

7:56

It's just such a harsh term.

7:58

I think the thing about Mother Tree is

8:00

that she had this humility about her, Like

8:02

I. She had

8:05

this like focusing in all

8:07

her speeches on the poor and love and

8:09

on Jesus and sort

8:12

of being this humble servant. I think of the

8:14

Medal of Freedom speech where she says, you

8:16

know, this isn't about me. Yeah,

8:19

So it feels a little different than some

8:22

charismatic leaders that are just so

8:24

self focused. It's sheathed

8:26

in humility, So it does feel different,

8:28

even though a lot of things feel the same. Definitely.

8:32

And something I didn't want to gloss

8:34

over in this discussion is that the

8:37

mischares of charity are part of an organized

8:39

religion. So what really

8:41

differentiates a religion from a cult,

8:44

because I think sometimes there's

8:47

this fine line and maybe there's even

8:49

a gray area. Yeah. The way

8:51

I see it's the difference between the cult and

8:53

the healthy religion is that a

8:56

healthy religion is going to have you worshiping

8:59

some type of of of higher being,

9:01

you know, whether it's God or Jesus

9:03

or Allah or Buddha or a

9:05

tree or whatever. Right, but

9:08

you're not expected to worship

9:11

this human person right in front of

9:13

you, which I

9:15

don't know if that fits Mother Teresa, because

9:18

my impression is that it wasn't as if MC sisters

9:21

were literally worshiping Mother Teresa.

9:24

Well, you know, I think what I mean by that

9:26

is that person becomes all

9:29

powerful. That person

9:31

is clearly the one who is calling

9:33

all the shots and the one who you must

9:35

obey. While they may still

9:39

worship God or Jesus.

9:41

Um, the human authoritarian

9:44

figure intervenes and

9:47

you know, declares herself

9:49

the voice of God. Yeah.

9:52

So when she says a leader

9:54

who declares herself the voice of God, it's

9:58

like, I don't think Mother Teresa would say,

10:00

I declare I'm the voice of God. You know,

10:02

like that doesn't sound like Mother Teresa. Um.

10:06

And yet and yet the Superiors

10:09

are the voice of God. I mean, that is

10:11

the phrase we heard over and over again.

10:13

And she is the superior

10:16

of the superiors. Yeah.

10:19

And you know one other question that

10:23

I remember you brought up with me that you were

10:25

wondering that you wanted answered at one point

10:27

when we were reporting the story

10:30

was do ethical cults

10:32

exist? Oh? Yeah,

10:35

and so yeah. I was curious about that too,

10:37

so I asked Dr Loalich, and this is what

10:39

she said. In my opinion, there's no

10:41

such thing as a benign cult, because

10:44

part of what for me defines the cult

10:46

is the person giving up their autonomy,

10:49

giving up their selves. And

10:51

once you give up your autonomy, I

10:54

don't see that as a good thing. So I

10:56

don't care if it's a chocolate chip cookie

10:58

cult. It's not good

11:01

that you've given up your autonomy

11:03

and your own decision making powers. I

11:06

think it makes sense if you are someone who believes

11:09

that independent thought is inherently

11:11

a good thing, any group

11:13

that's taking that away would

11:16

be seen as bad. Honestly.

11:19

It also makes me kind of question

11:22

myself and whether I'm too

11:24

easy sometimes on the missionaries of charity.

11:27

M hmm, what do you mean, I'm

11:30

trying so hard to see everything

11:33

from different people's perspectives,

11:36

Like, I'm really trying to keep an open mind. And

11:38

if am I keeping such an open mind that I'm

11:40

not um

11:43

seeing what's in front of me, does

11:46

that help me see it better? Or

11:48

does that actually blind me? A little

11:50

bit like we're

11:52

going to have such different reactions from different listeners.

11:55

Yeah, I mean, I think some people would say, you talk

11:57

to a cult expert in reference to the mystery

12:00

or of charity. They might be offended by that. But

12:03

to me, what really sticks out about

12:05

what she's saying is that giving up

12:08

of autonomy. And if nothing else,

12:10

if the missionaries of charity don't

12:13

meet some of these other standards, they

12:16

do meet this standard, that giving

12:18

up of self. I mean that literal

12:20

emptying of self we've heard from

12:23

the sisters Jesus

12:25

miss increased, I m miss decrease. It's

12:28

just about the reduction of autonomy to

12:30

be a pencil in God's

12:33

hand, and so they are discouraged

12:35

from thinking for themselves. But

12:38

I think the counter argument is that their

12:40

spirituality is

12:42

about that, that there's this intentional

12:45

emptying or draining of self. There's

12:48

almost like a knowing letting go of self,

12:50

and there's something beautiful and meaningful about

12:52

that. For some of these women

12:55

in their perspective, it brings them closer

12:57

to God. And why should others that

13:00

it is a beautiful thing to let go of

13:02

yourself and your own needs and desires

13:06

for a larger picture, a bigger,

13:09

higher purpose or meeting. Yeah.

13:12

So then I mean, given all these barriers to leaving,

13:15

I kind of thought, well, what allows

13:17

people to eventually leave? Then? Well,

13:20

I think what happens is I think everyone

13:23

who's in a cultic

13:25

situation, even the true

13:27

believers, everyone has doubts and everyone

13:30

has hesitations, and so because

13:32

you can't do anything with them. The

13:35

way I see it is that you keep

13:37

shoving these things in the back of your head. And

13:39

she used this metaphor of a shelf, this

13:42

shelf in the back of your head, and

13:44

finally something will happen, you

13:46

know, that'll break

13:49

that shelf. It'll be one too many things.

13:51

And once that shelf breaks and these doubts

13:54

come spilling out, you know, then

13:56

you kind of have the SAHA moment, like,

13:58

oh my god, I've got to get out of your there's some this

14:00

is not healthy, this is whatever.

14:03

You know, this is wrong. I have to get out of

14:05

here. It's not Also,

14:07

as if once that shelf breaks, you immediately

14:10

walk out, you have to come

14:12

up with a plan for how to extricate yourself.

14:15

That also really resonates with what we've heard, definitely,

14:20

But all of this also just makes me think about

14:24

what is it actually like when

14:26

you're there, You're in, You're sorry,

14:29

your hair is cut short.

14:32

You've been living this life for potential

14:34

years, and

14:37

to feel like you want to leave. And we've

14:40

heard that before from people of just those thoughts

14:42

of like how do I get out? I don't know how to get out,

14:45

and then like to just look to

14:47

the future, what will

14:49

my future be? I

14:52

just can't imagine how difficult that would be.

15:27

A lot of former sisters we spoke to didn't

15:29

want to be recorded, and that includes

15:31

all of the former sisters we talked to who are originally

15:33

from India. That's an important

15:35

perspective because a lot of missionaries of charity

15:38

are Indian. That was part of Mother Teresa's

15:40

vision from the beginning. In

15:42

my mind, not being able to hear their voices

15:44

is something that's been missing in this podcast. One

15:48

phone call with a former sister from India hit us

15:50

hard. She repeatedly

15:52

said that being an m C was like slavery.

15:55

She said the impact was like a quote shadow on

15:57

your mind, the way of thinking of the innabilly

16:00

need to make friends, the relentless guilt. She

16:02

said, it stays with you and She

16:04

felt that life inside the empty society was

16:06

so busy it left no time to think. She

16:09

said there was quote a lot of brainwashing

16:11

going on. Collect

16:14

Livermore, the Australian sister whose

16:16

story we've been following, She used

16:18

the same language, what is brainwashing.

16:20

Brainwashing is that you you've

16:26

only got one source of information. They

16:31

know everything about you, even

16:33

your most personal thoughts, and

16:38

if you start to think you want

16:40

out, they're there

16:42

too, sort of talk you out

16:44

of it. Collect tried to

16:47

leave the Missionaries of Charity in She

16:50

knelt in front of Mother Teresa and Calcutta

16:52

and said she wanted to leave, but

16:54

Mother Teresa pressured her to stay. She's

16:57

the saint on the ciner. She

17:00

let's to be right. Ah, I

17:03

just knelt down too, she dismissed

17:05

me. So Collette stayed

17:07

and took her final vows. In

17:10

our interviews, Collette repeatedly

17:13

questioned why she hadn't left sooner. She

17:15

often blamed herself. She'd

17:18

say she wished she had more of a spine, more

17:20

confidence to take action, But

17:23

she also seemed keenly aware of some of the

17:25

pressures that kept her there. You

17:27

cut off from your family and

17:30

you can't. You haven't got a friend and

17:34

you're just struggling to survive. Collette

17:37

remembers how sisters would report on each other,

17:39

like a time she was accused of having a particular

17:42

friendship the girl I joined

17:44

with Ruth. She and

17:46

I had walked to mother house together.

17:49

It just happened and

17:51

we were saying the Rosary along the way, and we

17:54

just happened to walk together, and

17:57

this was reported, yeah,

18:00

because we're never usually together. And

18:03

so I just exploded,

18:05

and and then I

18:07

was and then then you have to go through the

18:09

whole rigma role of kneeling down and

18:12

confessing your lack of self

18:15

control. And it just

18:17

went on and on again

18:19

and again. Her superiors adminished her for

18:21

thinking for herself. She says she

18:24

learns to question the motives of everything

18:26

she did. It's a very negative

18:28

atmosphere, you know. It's

18:31

like emotional abuse, and

18:34

it's not good for a person in

18:37

any way, because if

18:40

if you suffer emotional

18:42

abuse all the time and

18:45

insecurity all the time, there

18:48

will be a point where you'll just

18:50

crack up and you won't

18:53

be kind. And I honestly feel that

18:55

some people living under

18:58

that regime have become more

19:00

bitter and angry and not

19:02

their true selves. But

19:05

I don't know, I don't I feel

19:07

like I'm being too negative, you

19:10

know, like

19:13

it wasn't all miserable. Like every

19:15

time you see the sisters, they'd be smiling

19:17

and everything. The spirit of the society was

19:20

total surrender, loving, trust, and cheerfulness.

19:25

No matter what happened, you were supposed to be

19:27

cheerful. But

19:30

it was just these internal things that

19:34

problematic. I'm

19:38

mostly talking about the system. Colet

19:44

says, the system taught you to doubt yourself,

19:48

but she also started to doubt her place in the system.

20:00

H B.

20:26

Colette Livermore had been a sister with the Missionaries

20:28

of Charity for ten years. Then

20:31

she was transferred to an MCY house in Australia,

20:33

her home country. So on the way

20:35

to her new assignment, she was allowed to visit

20:37

her family. She met her mother

20:40

and sister at a train station and they

20:42

ran up to greet her. All three of

20:44

them were in tears. When Collette

20:46

left Australia for the m c S. Her sister

20:49

was ten years old. Now she was

20:51

a young woman, So I was in

20:53

my own country and

20:57

the culture clash, the the

21:00

way of doing things was even more

21:05

jangly. You know, it just wasn't

21:08

didn't feel right. Collette

21:10

was stationed in Burke and the Outback,

21:13

about four miles from home. It

21:15

just seemed culturally inappropriate

21:18

the way we were behaving, with

21:21

the Aboriginal people trying to call

21:23

him for Sunday mess when

21:25

they didn't want to go, the kids didn't

21:27

want to go. At this point, it felt

21:30

like a daily struggle to stay in the order. I

21:33

knew that I couldn't go

21:35

on like this, and I

21:37

think if you're not true to yourself, you you

21:42

quite literally lose yourself. You're not who

21:44

you are. Finally,

21:46

she told her superior she

21:48

was done. The

21:51

Superior had hers a priest. He

21:53

told Colette her desire to leave as the result of

21:56

an evil spirit. Besides,

21:58

he said, what would you do? Where were you go?

22:01

Colette said she wanted to study medicine, and

22:03

he told her that was pride talking. It

22:05

was an impossible dream. A novice

22:07

mistress whom Colette had previously worked with, wrote

22:09

to her. She said Colette had to walk

22:12

through a dark night of the soul. The crisis

22:14

she was feeling would purify her. Colettz

22:17

says this was insidious because it flattered her.

22:19

A dark knight was a sign of saintliness. But

22:22

even with that in mind, she says, she

22:25

felt like she was cracking up. And so

22:27

I finally wrote to mother. I

22:29

said, please don't delay this anymore.

22:32

I really need to leave. She

22:34

didn't give the letter to her superior like she was

22:36

supposed to. Colette was often

22:39

in charge of the shopping, and in one of her trips

22:41

she mailed the letter to Calcutta herself.

22:44

About six weeks later, Collette

22:46

got her answer mother Tracey's

22:49

raw. I think it's very distinctive. I

22:52

knew um what it

22:54

was. All of the other

22:56

sisters in the house, there were only four of them,

22:59

had gone to a nearby city for medical appointments.

23:02

Collette was alone, which

23:05

is unheard the

23:07

first time ever in the house of time.

23:09

I was in the society. She

23:12

stepped out of the house and onto a dirt road

23:14

nicknames the Crystal Highway because of

23:16

all of the broken glass. She

23:22

stood there, letter in hand, the

23:25

shards glinting and lighting the way to the

23:27

horizon, and

23:30

she read, my

23:33

dearest child, you're asking for

23:35

a year of absence. I personally

23:37

don't like it, but the church permits it. If

23:40

you still want it, you can go home to your mother for three

23:43

months without the religious stress. Be

23:46

careful when you are out, for you carry

23:48

in your heart the precious treasure, your vocation,

23:52

your vows. I will

23:54

pretty much for you. Do not let the

23:56

evil one deceive you. You belong to

23:58

Jesus, He loves you. God

24:02

bless you mother. Teresa m.

24:04

C. Yes, I'm

24:08

free. The

24:14

Superior was terribly distressed, tearful,

24:18

but I was out and

24:23

it was a big relief. Yeah,

24:26

I was out. Mary

24:57

Johnson would stay in the order for twenty years,

25:00

and she didn't know it yet, but her time

25:02

there was slowly running out. What

25:04

made me want to stay really was the

25:07

deep conviction that God wanted me

25:09

there. That's why I stayed,

25:12

because I felt like I was called and

25:16

whatever the circumstances were, whether they

25:18

were happy and beautiful times or whether

25:21

they were sustained periods of not so

25:23

great, God had called me there and that was

25:26

what was important. But

25:28

there was something else major going on in her life.

25:30

Mary had fallen in love. One

25:33

day she was on a train back from a trip to Florence.

25:36

It was nineteen years in when

25:39

the train entered a tunnel in the mountainside.

25:41

Everything went dark. She

25:44

slid out the crucifix that was always at her side,

25:46

the one Mother Teresa had given her many years before.

25:49

This was the crucifix that she put on her pillow every

25:52

night when she prayed, and every night

25:54

before bed, she kissed the crucifix, kissed

25:56

each of Jesus's five wounds. On

25:59

the rain in the dark, she ran her fingers

26:01

up and down its sides, and she started

26:03

to think. She thought about her years

26:06

as an MC, what it all meant, what

26:08

she was doing with her life, how she was doing

26:10

as an m C. She knew she'd

26:12

broken her vows more than once. This

26:15

time she'd fallen in love with a priest. We

26:17

call him Father Tom here, but that's not his real name.

26:21

And then there was the time she broke her vows when she was

26:23

alone with Tom in the hospital. She

26:25

knew she still craped that intimacy. Not

26:28

too long after our

26:31

experience in the hospital, Tom

26:35

told me that he was being

26:37

transferred. It

26:40

was like, all right, then, what

26:43

can we do? That's the end of that.

26:46

She had stashed a glossy photo of him in the folds

26:49

of her spare. Sorry. She would

26:51

sometimes take it out and look at his face. She

26:54

knew this photo broke three of her vows, Poverty,

26:57

which didn't allow extra possessions, chastity

27:00

forbade this type of relationship, and

27:02

obedience, which required that her

27:04

superior know about her possession of the item.

27:07

But she couldn't seem to help herself. She

27:09

hit the photo, but

27:13

now Father Tom was far away and

27:16

she was still stuck with her doubts and questions.

27:19

They rushed through her mind as she wrote that train back

27:21

to the convent. I just was

27:23

holding Jesus on the cross

27:26

in my hands and wondering

27:29

what am I going to do? This is? I

27:32

feel so conflicted, And it's not

27:34

just about Tom. It's also

27:37

about being asked to do things

27:39

that I just don't really

27:42

sit right with me. It's about feeling

27:45

so conflicted about the things my superiors

27:47

were doing. The organization

27:49

didn't look like the one that I had

27:51

joined so many years earlier. I

27:55

had to make a decision, and I couldn't be, you

27:57

know, kind of one foot in, one foot out.

28:00

So she made a plan. She decided

28:02

she would spend one year keeping all of the rules,

28:05

doing the best I can to

28:07

be exactly the sort of missionary

28:10

of charity that Mother Teresa would

28:12

approve of. She told herself

28:14

that if at the end of the year she could be herself,

28:17

her true self and still be a missionary

28:19

of charity, she'd make a firm commitment

28:21

to stay, but if not, she'd

28:25

leave because I didn't

28:27

feel like God wanted me

28:29

to be somebody other than the

28:31

person he made me. Of course,

28:34

to fulfill that pact to be a good missionary

28:36

of charity, she knew she'd

28:38

have to give up Tom and

28:41

his photograph, so

28:43

she took it from its hiding place and brought it to the

28:45

chapel. There was a candle burning,

28:47

and I held that photo up to the candle

28:50

and watched us as the photo

28:52

turned to ash, and it

28:57

felt cleaner. I

29:00

felt cleaner. She

29:02

gathered the ashes and blew them out the window.

29:11

Mary was then assigned to be superior of a

29:13

house intour Bellamonica at the northern

29:16

edge of Rome. The previous

29:18

superior had just disappeared, no explanation,

29:21

just left. She hadn't seemed to

29:23

be in distress, but she was gone. Now, leaving

29:26

without permission was considered a disgrace to one's

29:28

self and the community, and

29:30

now it was Mary's job to replace her. Mary

29:34

says she tried to be a compassionate superior. She

29:36

let sisters sleep a little extra on Thursdays.

29:39

She let one sister drink coffee early

29:41

to fight off drowsiness during meditation, and

29:44

another she let work in the garden. She

29:47

also tried to infuse her mission work with new meaning.

29:50

I want to help the poor

29:52

people get out of poverty, not

29:55

just make them a little bit more comfortable

29:58

being poor. You know.

30:00

I had tried when I was superior

30:03

to get some programs in place which

30:05

would actually do that, and I

30:07

couldn't get permission to do it. No.

30:10

No, we'll house them, we'll feed them,

30:12

and then we'll put them back out on the street without

30:14

any more help than that. That

30:16

wasn't enough for Mary. She felt like a robot

30:19

just following rules. We should

30:21

help people live a full life, she thought, and

30:23

I wanted that full life for myself.

30:28

Throughout her time as a missionary of charity, very

30:31

often attended vow ceremonies. They

30:33

happened every six months. That were first

30:35

vows, that were final vows. She'd

30:37

always thought these events were joyful, hopeful occasions.

30:40

They were a chance for her to silently renew her own

30:42

vows to herself. I knew all

30:44

the words that ceremony by heart, every

30:48

single one of them. But this time,

30:50

when she attended an mcy vow ceremony, she

30:53

didn't know if she could silently renew those vows.

30:56

Her mind kept flipping back and forth. This

31:01

was the year she had decided to give herself fully

31:03

as a gift to God. Then

31:05

she thought, but what right did God have to take everything?

31:10

She stopped herself. No, she was giving, God

31:12

wasn't taking. She was Sister Donata,

31:14

the freely given one. But

31:18

then why was it that as she screwed her eyes

31:20

shut, trying to quell the built up presentment, she

31:23

felt, tears streamed down her face. Finally,

31:28

she prayed, God, I cursed

31:30

the day he placed that woman's wrinkled face on the cover

31:32

of Time magazine. This is

31:34

not love. As

31:37

the sisters took their vows, something

31:40

inside of me is like yelling, don't

31:43

don't do it, don't do it. I

31:47

was like sitting back in the pews

31:49

and and just trying to stay

31:52

in my seat there, but wanting

31:54

to run from the church. It

32:13

was Mary Johnson's

32:15

twentieth year in the m c S. As

32:18

the end of for one year, promised to fully follow the rules

32:20

approached, she asked to take double penance.

32:23

She thought it would bring her clarity and strength. She

32:26

tightened the chains around her arm and waist twice

32:28

a day. She hit her legs double the

32:30

number of times. She no longer

32:32

believed God took pleasure in her pain, but

32:34

she did it anyway. You know,

32:37

I've been thinking about this decision because

32:39

it's such a big one, and I

32:42

was trying to figure out for myself what

32:46

was the last straw, what was the thing? And

32:49

then I kind of I started thinking about

32:51

my own life and times when I've made big

32:54

decisions, and often

32:58

there isn't a moment, or if

33:00

there's a moment, it's not a moment

33:02

of decision, it's a moment of realizing I've

33:05

already decided, like

33:07

I've kind of known for a while. One

33:11

of the things I've been doing for the past couple

33:13

of years is studying the brain the

33:16

way we make decisions. And there's

33:18

a lot of controversy about that among

33:21

neuroscientists and people who

33:23

study these things really closely, and

33:25

it seems that a lot of decisions

33:28

actually get made before the

33:31

person is conscious

33:34

that the decision has been made. All of these different

33:36

experiments, even just real simple

33:38

things like you can raise your hand whenever you

33:40

want to raise your hand, and the scans

33:43

of the brain shows that the

33:45

brain knows that you're going to

33:48

make that decision before you

33:50

know that you're going to make that decision. So

33:53

I think the whole, you know, big decision

33:56

making thing it

33:58

it's not necessarily a moment that

34:00

we are fully conscious of that. There are all kinds

34:03

of background things going on in

34:05

our psyches, in our brains that were not

34:07

always aware of, and then we become

34:10

aware of them. I

34:13

think what Mary's getting at here is that by the time

34:15

she actually took action to leave, something

34:18

deep inside her already knew, like

34:20

there is an element of inevitability. I

34:24

wonder if that's what allowed her to accept her own

34:26

decision. She knew she'd started already

34:28

made it, Mary

34:36

remembers. On Christmas Day, an

34:39

mc priest shared his own story in a homily.

34:43

Something about it struck her cut to the

34:45

core of her decision on whether to leave, and

34:48

he said that a year ago he left the father's

34:51

because he didn't even know if he wanted to be

34:53

a priest anymore. So

34:55

he said he went away praying and thinking

34:57

and struggling, but

35:01

at the end he'd come to the conclusion that

35:04

he would never be happier than as a

35:06

priest. So he came

35:08

back to the MC fathers. Then

35:11

he told them God works in

35:13

very surprising ways, and

35:16

we must not be afraid to follow

35:18

the stars he sends us, even

35:20

if the journey takes us to unexpected

35:23

places. That

35:26

night, Mary held a pillow over

35:28

her head to stifle the sound of her sobbing.

35:32

She didn't want the sisters to hear. I

35:34

just new, but I

35:37

cried, and over the next few days

35:39

I wrote that letter. On

35:47

January one, she

35:49

wrote to Mother Teresa. She asked to start

35:51

the official process to leave the m c's.

35:54

It's called ex claustration. It would

35:56

involve a year away from the MCS before

35:59

fully leaving the order, when Mary could

36:01

pray and discern her path. It's sort of like

36:03

a leave of absence. If after

36:05

a year, Mary still felt leaving the order was best,

36:08

she would request permission from the Pope for

36:10

a dispensation from her vows. Mary

36:13

told Mother Teresa she loved the sisters and

36:15

was grateful, but she was leaving, and

36:17

she would not change her mind. Even

36:20

though it was the first of the month. Mary

36:23

decided not to cut her hair that night, as she usually

36:25

did. Mother Teresa had told us,

36:28

never go a

36:30

month without cutting your hair. She

36:32

said that that road only led to

36:35

leaving the convent. But

36:37

I was lucky because my hair was curly, and even

36:40

as it grew, it didn't grow out

36:42

in a way that could be seen. She

36:45

also stopped taking the discipline. She

36:47

never would again. I didn't

36:50

leave the convent without

36:53

faith, without trust, without hope,

36:56

without love. I had a lot of it. I

36:59

just didn't leave because I

37:01

had turned against

37:04

God or my vocation, or because

37:06

I was bitter. I left because

37:09

I believed God wanted people to

37:11

flourish, and I knew I wasn't flourishing

37:13

there, So how could it possibly be that God

37:15

wanted me to stay? And lots

37:18

and lots of prayer, lots and lots of

37:20

discernment, Mary felt called

37:23

by God to a new place. Around

37:28

this time, Father Tom was so far away in

37:30

another country. Before

37:33

he left, we had had an

37:35

agreement that if anything important happened,

37:37

we would let each other know, So I

37:39

had his phone number. I called

37:41

him and told him that I had received

37:44

permission to leave the

37:46

Missionaries of Charity on a one year leave

37:49

of absence. And when

37:51

I told Tom

37:54

that I would be leaving

37:57

for a while, he asked,

38:00

does this mean that you would consider marrying

38:03

me? And

38:07

that question just kind of floored me because

38:09

I wasn't expecting it, and

38:12

it wasn't really a proposal

38:15

either. It was like, what

38:17

what did he mean? And I wasn't leaving

38:20

to marry him. I was leaving really

38:23

to be myself, to find my

38:25

own way. And I felt

38:28

like I loved Father Tom

38:30

so much, and

38:33

I was scared that it would be a distraction

38:35

for me. I felt like I

38:38

really needed to

38:40

figure out what God wanted of me. So

38:46

Mary wrote him a letter, pages and pages.

38:49

She said she loved him, she would always

38:51

love him, but she needed time to find

38:54

her path. She

38:56

said, during her years ex clustration, her

38:58

leave of absence, they would and contact

39:00

each other, not a phone call, not a letter.

39:04

When she finished writing, she felt peace, and

39:09

then she waited from mother Teresa's response. By

39:12

this time, she was quite old and she wasn't

39:14

always remembering things. And I received

39:16

a letter back, signed by her.

39:19

It was kind of a form letter, but she had signed

39:21

it giving me permission to leave. She

39:24

wasn't supposed to tell anyone about the news, yet she

39:27

wouldn't tell any of the priests and volunteers she

39:29

worked with until right before she left. When

39:31

the time came, she would say, is instructed.

39:34

I'm going to America to be closer with my family.

39:37

Is there some trouble? The sisters

39:39

really wanted to contain

39:42

any sort of public relations

39:44

damage that might come. Like any

39:46

sister who was transferred, she'd have no

39:48

contact with the people she left behind. She'd

39:51

give up the relationships she had formed over twenty

39:53

years. But she wanted to

39:56

warn the sisters under her care. There

39:58

were just six sisters. I us they're

40:00

superior. I told

40:02

them a few days before I left that that was

40:05

what was happening. Did

40:07

you feel like they understood? I don't

40:09

think they had any idea the

40:12

degree to which I had been

40:15

struggling and praying and discerning.

40:18

Whenever Mary visited the larger convent nearby,

40:21

sisters would cry and ask her if it was true.

40:24

The sister who had once been married supervisor in the kitchen

40:26

when she was a novice nineteen years before. The

40:29

sister burned by boiling pasta water. She

40:31

wept. Some sisters told

40:34

Mary she was making a mistake, that she'd

40:36

regret leaving for the rest of her life. But

40:39

in the end, the sisters and Mary's

40:41

convent helped her get ready. They

40:44

helped so some close for me a

40:47

skirt and a blouse, a

40:49

brown paisley skirt and a dark gold blouse,

40:52

Mary called at her getaway outfit. Mary

41:00

didn't want to discuss her departure with Mother Teresa

41:02

in person. She had gotten permission

41:05

to leave in a form letter, and Mother

41:07

Teresa was eighty six in frail. Mary

41:10

thought the news might give her a heart attack, but

41:13

things didn't go as planned. She

41:15

came to Rome where I was, and

41:18

somebody reminded her that

41:21

shortly I would be leaving. And

41:25

she came and she found me, and she brought me to

41:27

her room and she says, what is this? Mother,

41:29

here's about you? So what is it? Mother?

41:31

Tear's about you? And it's a mother I'm

41:33

leaving And she couldn't believe

41:36

it, and she tried to convince me

41:38

to stay. And just very very

41:40

very very difficult situation and

41:43

conversation. Mary

41:47

knew Mother wanted explanations, and

41:49

there are countless things she wanted to say. More

41:52

than anything, Mary wanted to talk with this woman

41:54

who had defined her life, to tell

41:56

her everything she felt to explain

42:00

Mother. She wanted to say, My

42:02

God isn't like yours. Your

42:05

God asks you to deny yourself. He counts

42:07

each sacrifice. Your

42:09

God is Jesus crucified. Mine is the

42:11

God of resurrection, who says,

42:14

enough of this suffering, Let's

42:16

heal the world. Above

42:19

all, she wanted Mother Teresa to know she loved

42:21

her. Did Mother know how

42:23

much? Mother

42:26

Teresa said, Sister, listen

42:29

to mother. Talk to mother. She

42:32

hid her hand on the desk with each word. But

42:36

Mary knew if she started listening her reasons

42:38

for going, it would turn into a dialog. She

42:40

knew what Mother Teresa would say, what

42:43

persuasive argument she'd launch into, and

42:45

she knew Mother Teresa would be convincing. She

42:48

still had a power over Mary's psyche, and

42:51

at a certain point, she says, Mother

42:54

could believes us about anyone, but

42:57

she cannot believe it about you. And

43:01

we never had another conversation. That was the last

43:03

conversation I had with her. I

43:09

left. She died three months

43:11

later. And I

43:15

still dream about her from time to time.

43:31

On a spring morning, Mary

43:34

Johnson woke up in the convent dormitory,

43:36

but instead of putting on her sorry, she reached

43:39

for the paisley skirt and blouse. Instead

43:41

of hanging the crucifix at her side, she picked

43:43

it up and kissed it, then put

43:46

Jesus in her bag. What

43:48

did it feel like to put on regular clothes

43:51

after all these years? The strangest thing

43:53

about putting on regular clothes for me was

43:55

I could feel the wind on my

43:58

calves. I mean, my sk didn't

44:00

go all the way to the floor, and just like

44:02

that, that part of me hadn't felt wind in so

44:04

long, So that was really strange. As

44:09

Mary stepped out the door, the short

44:11

curls on her head moved ever so slightly in

44:13

the breeze. More

44:15

than half her life had been in a convent. She

44:18

was thirty nine years old. Now

44:20

she just needed to figure out what

44:23

next. The

45:13

Turning is written by Allen lance Lesser and me. Our

45:16

producers are Allen lance Lesser and Emily Foreman.

45:18

Our editor is Rob Rosenthal. Andrea

45:20

a Suage is our digital producer. Fact

45:23

checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado Special

45:26

thanks to Dr Yanielalich, Professor

45:29

Emerita of Sociology at California State

45:31

University, Chico, and Amy Gaines,

45:33

Sarah oh Lander, Mamad Fishcoff, Bethan

45:35

Macaluso, Travis Dunlap, and consulting

45:38

producer Mary Johnson. Her memoir

45:40

and Unquenchable Thirst provided inspiration for this

45:42

series. Our executive

45:45

producers are Jessica Albert and John Parratti

45:47

from Rococo Punch and Katrina Norville

45:49

from My Heart Radio. Our theme music is

45:51

by Matt Reid. For photos and more

45:53

details on the series, follow us on Instagram

45:56

at Rococo Punch. You can reach out

45:58

via email to the Turning at

46:00

Prococa Punch dot com. I'm

46:02

Aerca Lands. Thanks for listening.