Elizabeth Schoffen

“ By the vow of obedience a sister is to yield entire obedience of thought, word and understanding to her superior. The will of her superior must be her will, believing that black was white if the superior said so. Literally, she was like a corpse in her superior's hands, and still a tool to work for the Roman Catholic system. What is worse than mental slavery, the stultifying of all our intellectual powers and bringing them under the despotic will of another, and this behind the prison walls and barred doors of the Romish religious convent? ”

“ He is her justifier, as she is absolutely in his wily meshes and victimized in his hellish power—for nothing less than hell on earth is the confessional to sisters. It is the destroyer of womanly purity, womanly refinement—destroying the higher instincts and ennobling qualities. A sister does not talk in the confessional of what is best and noblest in her, but is racking her brain all week preparing and gathering everything that is mean, low, degrading, contemptible—digging up secret things to tell and talk about to the priest. ”

“ If my Protestant friends will just stop one moment and think about the difference between Americanism and Catholicism, then they will realize how it is that the good Roman Catholic cannot enjoy the true liberal government that their forefathers fought, bled and died for, and which they are enjoying today.
Americanism means true democracy—the rule of the majority in matters civil, and the protection of the rights of the minority.
Americanism means freedom of thought, conscience, speech and press.
Americanism means the right to worship God according to the dictates of your own conscience. ”

“ From behind the convent walls the heartbroken cries of the victims cannot be heard by the deceived world, and therefore, there is no appeal for justice.
Open the doors of every convent and monastery and let the deluded victims return to the world and live useful lives if they so choose! Let them be free to come and go at will, like any other citizen, and grant them the liberty guaranteed by the Constitution to all within our borders. ”

“ One of the Popes has said, "Ignorance is the mother of devotion." Yes, superstition was the name of my Roman Catholic mother; indifference was the name, in effect, of my Roman Catholic father. But the Lord God, the pope, through the priest, the devil's hellish system, was the school I was raised in. It was this cunningly devised, diabolical system which was responsible for the ignorance and mental blindness of my good, honest, but deluded parents, as it was to blame for the awful wrongs, injustice and the wretched life of abject convent slavery I had to live so many years. ”

“ Being called to take care of your dear Son in His poverty, His suffering and to assist Him when dying, we desire that you make us share in your feelings as a mother. Therefore, please make us partake of your compassion for all the spiritual and physical miseries of the children that you have begotten on the cross. Be pleased to look at us as the daughters of sorrow. Deign to receive us in your most amiable heart—this heart of yours that was pierced with the seven swords of sorrow We willingly love this heart of yours so good. You know the dangers we go through in the exercise of Charity ”

“ As my eyes opened I realized that I might as well try to tear down the mighty stone walls of the Rocky Mountains, which I could behold daily, as to move the Roman Catholic "religious" machine to interest itself in righting wrongs for a sister in the community. There was nothing for me to do but live on and take whatever wrongs the system was pleased to mete out to me to the end of my days, or to play the hypocrite for a few years, waiting for something better, if those in authority saw fit to give me a change. ”

“ Be watchful. I love the community with all my soul, but I hate the iniquity wrought by some of its members through jealousy and ambition. God help the weak! I shall say no more today, but leave it all to the strong right arm of the Almighty.
Good-bye and believe me,
Sincerely yours,
SISTER M. WILFRID.
This letter is proof that I was not the only sister who knew of the wrongs and injustices that were going on under the plea of religion. ”

“ If there was jealousy and disagreement, I do not believe that a good and generous worker was taken out of office by the Master and put aside as an evil spirit or put through humiliating and heart-rending trials till there would be nothing left but a grimace and distorted body or an insensible being, an object of pity and sadness.
Should religion, if it was the right kind, make people wish and sigh for death to come and put an end to their misery? ”

“ Nice time of the day and years of my life for my superiors to say to my face that they have no fault to find with my work and none of character, and at the same time to do what they have done in the name of good under cover of religion, claiming all right because authority is theirs. Must unfit and unscrupulous ones be left to have their own way entirely? Has justice no weight or meaning in the government of church organizations? ”

“ Splendid remedy to get one over wretched loneliness and sorrow—to make one feel religious and grateful for having worked and sacrificed ones self nearly to the end of ones life and then hear from those over you, "now you can work if you want to," and a sister stays where she is sent, even if she dies, and more bold talk of that kind. ”

“ At that, I have my grave doubts if the convent system could ever be harmonious. Think of housing a large number of women under one roof, bound by the ironclad, childish rules and precepts. They are a barrier to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," which the Constitution of the United States guarantees every citizen. They make progress an impossibility. The outside world thinks the convent system is a success because they see the institutions grow in size and number, which is due to the economic methods of free sister-service. ”

“ There were those [105] sisters with their whole heart and soul perfectly sincere in their religion. Others who were the schemers, intriguing in the most cunningly devised plans imaginable, workers of iniquity and the greatest injustices in the guise of religious show. To your face this class would be so sanctified, always saying prayers and looking to heaven, but when your back was turned, they would step on you, trample you under their feet, or knife you to attain their end, and that they might be glorified and exalted in the eyes of their companions and superiors. ”

“ How much more must we take an interest in the lives of the poor, oppressed humans, the over-burdened, entrapped nuns behind the convent walls, though she may imagine that she is enjoying the greatest freedom and the happiest life. Yes, we must all look well to the doors that stand between Liberty and bondage, even though those doors seem bright with "religious" paint. ”

“ It takes nothing short of a trained hypocrite to get along in here. I do not think myself so good or of such excellent worth—I lay no claim above being an ordinary person, but if I do not have the spirit of a good religious and Sister of Charity, I am sure not so many of those I have lived with have it, and I would have to be punished to death, and then I could not in my conscience copy the leading or guiding spirits I lived with knowing all I do from daily practical life and experience for years. ”

“ I thought that if God was a just God, He could not and would not permit such oppression and cruelties and injustices to be perpetrated in the name of Christian religion and in His name. I decided that if there was a God who was the Creator of heaven and earth and all things therein, He would surely hear me if I would pour out my heart to Him. ”

“ He knows that I hold no ill-feeling against any Roman Catholic individual—laity, sister, priest or archbishop. But the system they represent—the system that I have served so faithfully for so many years—I have no sympathy for. Whatever a sister, priest or archbishop may be, the system has made them. I only hope and pray that they will all see the light and come out of their superstition and live the religious life they entered the Roman Catholic church to live. God's Word says, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." ”

“ If some person died at the hospital and left some clothes that were not claimed by anyone, they would be given to some poor person and call it "charity." If some patient could not or would not pay all of their bill, it would be entered in the books as "charity." But, God forbid that I should blame the poor sisters for what they do not do. It is the sisters who do the charity—not for the poor people—but for the church, by giving their life's service. ”

“ But how many true Protestants have we today? Very few, indeed. If you would be a true Protestant, you must protest twenty-four hours a day, and seven days in every week in the year. Thank God, the American people have, in the last few years, begun to wake up, and see the evils of this terrible system, which is gnawing at the very vitals of our free institutions. And, if the American people do not become indifferent, as they have in the past, Rome will [15] meet the same fate here that she has met, or is meeting, in nearly every country where she has held sway for any length of time. ”

“ Why the pope, purgatory, seven sacraments necessary for salvation, worship of the Virgin Mary, the immaculate conception of Mary, worship of images and statues, sale of indulgences, etc.? Yes, there may be Christianity in the Roman Catholic teachings and practices, but if you wish to find it you must search for it.
If the Christianity existed in the Roman Catholic Church that should be there, why is there so much rottenness connected with it? Whenever there is any scandal (this is a great Roman Catholic word) in the Protestant churches, is it hidden and tried to be kept down? ”

“ Jesus Christ became obedient unto death, even unto the death of the cross. Son of God, dying upon the cross for the salvation of souls, we adore thee; eternal Father, we offer Thee this, thy divine Son; accept, we beseech thee, His merits in behalf of the suffering souls in purgatory, for the conversion of all poor sinners, and of all in their agony. ”

“ I was now a "novice" and I must present myself every two weeks to the mistress of novices, and in order that she may direct my soul in the spiritual life, I must kneel to her in private and make what is called "manifestation of conscience." That is, to lay bare my heart and mind in everything I can possibly think of, excepting grave sins. If the mistress, who is a cunning director, has any dislike for any of the novices, this exercise is very cruel, for these "saintly" nuns know better than any one on earth how to cunningly torture those in their power—the system forcing them to it. ”

“ The more sinful and criminal a sister can believe herself in the eyes of God, and the more deserving of prisonlike treatment, and as a worm under the feet of all her companions, the more perfect and saintly she becomes in her own eyes and in the eyes of her superior, who can then use her as a better tool for the benefit of the system. ”

“ The secluding of girls and women is a man-made institution, and not for the saving of the souls of the poor girls, but for the profit of their work to the church. Is this Christianity?
How long will the American people be blind to this "religious cloak" for graft—school graft, hospital graft, laundry graft, and various other sweat-shop grafts? It is very convenient for the owners of the profitable "religious" institutions to operate them with sister service without paying either the wages or taxes required by the owners of legitimate industries. ”

“ Arriving at the camps at all hours of the night, tired, wet, cold and hungry; being lifted into bunks by the men when we were so cold, in fact nearly frozen, that we could hardly move; being carried on the backs of the men across muddy and wet places where the water was too shallow for the canoe, or boat, to land. Oh, yes, in the convent we were taught to be so modest—modesty to the very extreme, but it is all right, in the Roman Catholic Church, to send sisters to such places as this, where, as some of the men told me, they had not seen a woman for from three to eight years. ”

“ Is it not a public insult to the sisters of this country, that only French sisters are constantly kept in offices which have relation with seculars? And this enhanced by the fact that French sisters are, as a rule, not suitable to govern an English-speaking province, as they neither understand the ways of the people nor even of the sisters not French, nor conduct matters in a manner to do them good, not to speak of their imperfect knowledge of the language, and that sisters of a rude and inferior character are often placed in relation with outsiders. ”

“ It is only a matter of time; justice will assert itself in spite of all human power. Your sorrow will be turned into joy. Be brave, dear sister, this will all be righted.
There are some hard things in religious life. God knows why! The words of our dear Lord, "For which of my favors would you stone me," must come to the mind of some religious often during life.
Now, dear sister, I must close.
Believe me in union of prayer and suffering.
Yours ever,
SISTER M. WINIFRED.
Mother General Julian visited Cranbrook on August 13, 1911, and I endeavored to have her right matters, but to no avail. ”

“ Obligations to convent life and practices crush all natural instinct. If the sister desires to aim at the high "ideals" taught in the sisterhood, she must abase and humiliate herself. If she has not the courage to make a fool of herself, by abasing and humiliating herself, she must ask her superior to give her some humiliating penance to suppress her feelings of higher nature as proud and coming from the devil. ”

“ Think of the cleanliness and sanitation of these poor girls, wearing such clothes, perspiring over the sick, and from cooking and doing laundry work, and even being under the rule of asking permission to take a bath. Over all this when we cared for the sick, we tied a large white apron, slipped on a pair of white sleeves, and then the patients would say, "How sanitary these sisters were." Poor, deluded public; poor, secluded girls; they are not to blame, they do the very best they can under the gag-rule of Rome. ”

“ Is it the spirit when one is successful in an office and in all her dealings with the people she comes in contact with, to not even make an effort to have harmony and understanding on the part of her superiors if misunderstanding and discord exists? ”