86 year old Sister Marie-Daniel and 82 year old Sister Saint-Denis have gone on the run from their convent in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
They had intended to be accompanied by 89-year old Sister Maurice-Marie, but she managed to break a leg and had to abandon her escape.
They went on the run after the ‘council’ of Saint Joseph’s convent decided they should be put in an old people’s home. One of the nuns is apparently heavily disabled.
“At that age, you don’t move people about. It kills them,” said the nephew of 89-year-old Sister Maurice-Marie.
The nuns seem to be moving about pretty efficiently without killing themselves – they took off from the convent at a steady clop 10 days ago, and the Mother Superior hasn’t caught up with them yet.
When she does, she plans to discipline them in a religious court for disobeying her order to go and be disabled and elderly and sit quietly with the other old ladies.
The nuns are reputed to have hired ecclesiastical lawyers themselves; meanwhile, they keep on running.
The Tour de France ended yesterday, so we are occupying ourselves betting on which octogenarian Nun will get the yellow wimple today.
#SillyWeek
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I hope they make it safe to the Penguin Sanctuary; nobody will find them there.
Which one’s wearing the yellow jersey?
I have a lot of sympathy. They’ve been trying to put me in a home since 570AD, but I’ms still running!
Go sisters!
Gildas the Monk
Go on Nuns leg it to Amsterdam for a final few years/weeks/days of complete debauchery, you know you want to….
No wonder the French authorities initially forbade the screening of Jacques Rivette’s film of Diderot’s La Religieuse. Give nuns the idea that they should not simply put up with the orders of their superiors, and all hell breaks loose.
Good grief – with God on their side and a firm wind at their back one wishes them bon chance! You canny kick nuns out of their gaff – FFS, they’ve probably been there since pupilage. Ridiculous. This Mother Superior sounds a bit mean, frankly.
The problem is a shortage of nuns. As long as society ensured a regular supply of novices, the convents were able to take care of the elderly and disabled members of their orders and often of the community at large as well – in fact it was a matter of pride that they should do so.
Several orders take vows of stability and their nuns signed up expecting to live, die and be buried within the convent walls. However, these days there simply aren’t enough recruits to keep the wheels turning; that way of life is, I suspect, gone forever and the state will have to step in accordingly.
Still, the best of luck to Srs Marie-Daniel and Saint-Denis, wherever they are!
Young master Winwood has their signature tune
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6LVI1gDswg
My great-grandmother, in her nineties, let an attempt with two other residents at her nursing home, to escape. Sadly they were discovered when the taxi she had ordered, arrived to pick them up.
Good for them!