Before Vatican II: What Catholic Nuns used to be like

Before John XXIII “opened the windows”…

Before Vatican II:
What Catholic Nuns used to be like

Not everything was perfect in the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), but by and large things were in proper order and the Church was flourishing.

One of the most visible ways one can demonstrate the utter devastation caused by the aggiornamento (“updating”) of Vatican II, is by comparing Catholic nuns before and after the “Great Renewal”.

We recently stumbled upon the following 2-minute clip in which a Welsh Carmelite novice is interviewed by a TV reporter. (A novice is a nun who has not yet taken vows but is preparing to.) We encourage everyone to watch this short video because it manifests the incredible beauty and virtue found in the religious life:

The name of this young bride of Christ is Sister Imelda, O.Carm. How could one fail to be edified and inspired at seeing the testimony of someone so utterly in love with her divine Redeemer? How could one fail to notice the incredible dignity, joy, and serenity manifested by this sweet soul?

The interview is taken from a 30-minute documentary produced by the BBC. It was released under the title “Out Of This World” and was first broadcast on television on Aug. 25, 1959. The entire film is available on YouTube, and we have embedded it below. The host leading through the program is Hywel Davies (1919-65):

What we see these beautiful Carmelite nuns express is real, genuine spiritual joy. It is not the fake Vatican II joy of pathetically dancing and goofing around trying to look hip and relevant.

By the time this documentary was broadcast, the first false pope (Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII) had already been installed but the Modernist revolution had not yet gotten underway. Who knows what happened to Sr. Imelda? How did she live through the wrecking of the Church? Did she stay in the convent and try to persevere? Did she refuse to accept the new religion and abandon the Carmelites after they turned Novus Ordo? Did she gradually turn into a Novus Ordo herself? Is she still alive today, or did God perhaps, in His mercy, call her to Him shortly after the interview, before the conciliar deluge hit?

Although we have not been able to find anything about Sr. Imelda’s fate, who would be approximately 80 years old now, we were successful in finding out what happened to her convent in Presteigne, Wales.

Not surprisingly, it has long been closed. By 1988, there weren’t enough Carmelite nuns left to run the convent, so the building was given up and the remaining nuns were sent to other Carmelite houses. This is what the building looks like today — in late 2019 it was for sale for £650,000.

Contrasting the sweet Carmelites of 1959 with the Novus Ordo social justice sisters of our day, is a sobering experience:

Granted, not all Novus Ordo sisters or nuns are like that. Some still wear habits, a few even the old traditional habits, and some use fairly traditional Catholic spirituality.

However, it is a tragic sign of the times that orders of plain-clothes nuns exist at all. Oftentimes such “Catholic sisters” are into environmentalism and so-called social justice and promote abortion, LGBTQXYZism, feminism, esotericism, etc. Sr. Margaret Farley is a particularly egregious specimen illustrating what many “Roman Catholic nuns” have degenerated into since the “Great Renewal” of Vatican II.

In the following video, which we released earlier this year, the sedevacantist Sr. Mary Bernadette, CMRI, relates how she experienced the Modernist revolution in the Church and how she, having escaped to safety, nevertheless managed to become a real religious sister:

More information about this clip is available here.

In the United States there are a few sedevacantist orders of religious sisters. They include the Sisters of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen, the Congregation of the Mother of God, and the Daughters of Mary Mother of Our Savior.

What a great blessing to the world are true Roman Catholic religious — monks and nuns, brothers and sisters — praying and sacrificing their entire lives for the glory of God, the reparation of sin, and the conversion and salvation of souls; most of it unseen by the world (cf. Mt 6:6).

With almost all of them now gone, is it any wonder the world is going mad?

Image source: bbc.co.uk (screenshot)
License: fair use