Brides of Christ

Clip 2: The convent must change

Taken from the TV program Brides of Christ (1991)

Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be M

Curator’s clip description

Mother Superior (Sandy Gore) asks the nuns to spend some time reading and thinking about how they might deal with the changes suggested by Vatican II. Sister Catherine (Josephine Byrnes) is keen to discard old practices that she feels have lost their original meaning, while a group of older nuns, led by Sister Agnes (Brenda Fricker) refuse to acknowledge that any change is needed at all. The battle lines are drawn.

Curator’s notes

The strength of this series is its ability to allow us to feel sympathy for both sides of the great revolution of the Catholic Church that was demanded by Vatican II. Many nuns and priests who had devoted their lives to the Church since early adolescence and had become thoroughly institutionalised as a result, were suddenly asked to change their way of life, their mode of dress, and even their ideas.

The deceptively simple camera style, and lack of music, combined with great performances, make this gripping television. We are immediately and effectively drawn into the conflict between the old and the new ideas, as personalised through Sister Catherine and Sister Agnes.

When Channel 4 came on board with a presale for the series, Michael Grade was its head. His response to the proposed drama was, ‘nuns always work’. When the series was completed, Penny Chapman hoped for a sale to the US cable channel, Arts and Entertainment. They initially knocked it back but when the A and E boss was visiting Australia, the distributors, who knew that his wife was Catholic, suggested she might like to see the series. She could not stop watching and a US broadcast was the result. According to Chapman the show did incredibly well for Arts and Entertainment.

Janet Bell, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows Mother Superior (Sandy Gore) inviting the nuns of the fictitious Santo Spirito Convent School to discuss the possible changes in Roman Catholic religious life suggested by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). The scene soon focuses on Sister Catherine (Josephine Byrnes), who sees the Vatican guidelines as an opportunity to sweep away what she sees as the more obsolete practices of religious life. Sister Agnes (Brenda Fricker) then emerges as the second protagonist as she rejects the idea that any of their practices need to be reformed.

Educational value points

Although a work of the imagination, part of a television miniseries, the scenes in the clip may represent the ways in which some Roman Catholic religious communities grappled with the decisions of the Second Vatican Council about how they should live and organise themselves. The Council decisions were proclaimed by Pope Paul VI in 1965 in his ‘Decree on the adaptation and renewal of religious life’, known as ‘Perfectae caritatis’.

Skilful editing and direction build tension in the clip as the discussion in the convent escalates into an argument. Reverse-angle shots reveal Sister Catherine and Mother Ambrose as allies against the more conservative sisters. The busyness of the three nuns opening the window may suggest their flustered reaction to the idea of the reforms being presented.

One of the vows made by nuns was ‘obedience’, which usually meant unquestioning obedience to their superiors, but ‘Perfectae caritatis’ set a new direction when it called upon superiors to ‘gladly listen to their subjects’ (http://www.vatican.va). Accustomed to their traditional obedience, almost all the nuns in the clip are nonplussed when Mother Ambrose actually asks them for suggestions about what practices they are interested in reforming.

All the changes suggested by Sister Catherine are backed up by ‘Perfectae caritatis’. In relation to ‘garments’, the papal decree says ‘The religious habit … should be simple and modest … In addition it must meet the requirements of health and be suited to the circumstances of time and place … The habits of both men and women religious which do not conform to these norms must be changed’ (http://www.vatican.va). The habits seen in the clip were in fact changed.

Over the centuries a number of practices, usually those falling under the heading of obedience, had grown up in religious life, and among the most demeaning was ‘the chapter of faults’ mentioned in the clip. This was a regular event, usually monthly, where members of a religious community gathered together and each confessed publicly to their faults. In some religious orders if a member did not confess the others were obliged to accuse them of faults.

The ‘great silence’, identified by Sister Catherine in the clip as one of the ‘barnacles’ on religious life, had its authority drawn from the Bible and was intended to help the members of a Roman Catholic religious community enter more fully into the life of prayer by remaining silent for long periods. The ‘great silence’ usually lasted all night, although in some orders, such as the Trappists, the commitment to silence was greater than the observance usually required.

Set in the 1960s, the Brides of Christ miniseries shows the effect of changes in society and of the upheaval in the Roman Catholic church brought about by Vatican II. Produced by Sue Masters and Penny Chapman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, its six episodes traced changes in the lives of the girls attending the convent school and the nuns running it. Brides of Christ was one of the great successes of Australian television in the 1990s.