Maureen Kelly

I expected irreverent pictures of nuns in compromising situations. What I got was a book that showed nuns having fun in ways not usually associated with nuns. The captions were humorous, often plays on words, but nothing that I think would be offensive except to the most conservative Catholics. I think this made nuns more accessible, showing them to be real people who like to try new things like roller-skating, playing ball with kids, and joining carnival games. The book had pictures of nuns having fun at conferences or other gatherings with nuns from other monastics; you can tell by the different habits they wore. I had no idea how many different types of habits and how diverse and elaborate they can be. There was an diagram explaining he different parts of the habit and illustrations depicting a few unusual ones complete with the order that wears each. The photos were interspersed with humorous asides but again nothing I found sacrilegious. For example there was a list (with photos) of famous nuns in film and TV; a list of famous powerful women who would make good nuns for their stalwart attitudes and factoids and statistics about things such as numbers of nuns now compared with a few decades ago and how that compares to the number of Catholics, and the order of nuns that has grown exponentially. All in all I was pleasantly surprised, especially since I learned something!… (más)

I expected irreverent pictures of nuns in compromising situations. What I got was a book that showed nuns having fun in ways not usually associated with nuns. The captions were humorous, often plays on words, but nothing that I think would be offensive except to the most conservative Catholics. I think this made nuns more accessible, showing them to be real people who like to try new things like roller-skating, playing ball with kids, and joining carnival games. The book had pictures of nuns having fun at conferences or other gatherings with nuns from other monastics; you can tell by the different habits they wore. I had no idea how many different types of habits and how diverse and elaborate they can be. There was an diagram explaining he different parts of the habit and illustrations depicting a few unusual ones complete with the order that wears each. The photos were interspersed with humorous asides but again nothing I found sacrilegious. For example there was a list (with photos) of famous nuns in film and TV; a list of famous powerful women who would make good nuns for their stalwart attitudes and factoids and statistics about things such as numbers of nuns now compared with a few decades ago and how that compares to the number of Catholics, and the order of nuns that has grown exponentially. All in all I was pleasantly surprised, especially since I learned something!… (más)