Favorite old-timey nun habits

Here's a divine young Audrey Hepburn in a series of costume tests for THE NUN'S STORY.

It takes a lot to really make a wimple work.

Definitely the Daughters of Charity!

Yes, the DOC definitely went all in.

The Order of the Sisters of San Tanco

Lutheran nuns ... who knew?

Another French order...

Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (RSHM)...Marymount nuns:

These nuns have a terrible habit...

I call this nun's habit, "Oops I did it again"

I have a soft spot for the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. My favourite aunt was a DOLSH and she wore this habit until Vatican 2. I just loved the heart shaped wimple!

What was the kind of nun with the bonnet Meryl Streep played in "Doubt"?

School Sisters of Notre Dame!

St. Francis Academy Sect

Sisters of Our Ladies of the Trapezoid

Sisters of Perpetual Dorkiness

The habits of nuns in Fellini films always gave me a chuckle.

School Sisters of Notre Dame

For those of you who had the Sisters of Mercy pre-Vatican II, here is a video of a contemporary sister showing how they used to put on the many components of the habit.

[quote] Sisters of Our Ladies of the Trapezoid

Oh, dear.

Try Sisters of Our Lady of the Trapezoid.

One Lady (The Blessed Virgin Mary) not “Ladies”

The Dominicans

The Catholic grade school I attended was staffed by the Daughters of Charity.

As punishment for some infraction of the rules I don't even remember, I had to stay after school. The nun took me to the convent, then to the basement laundry room. I had to scrape the caked off starch from the forms they used in laundering the breast plates and bonnets (or whatever they were called). Talk about drudgery.

The Daughters of Charity with the large winged cornette? Or the Sisters of Charity who wore bonnets?

Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul

Daughters of Charity

I saw taught by the School Sisters of Notre Dame in the 1960s. In first grade, Sister Maureen was playing dodgeball with us. I hit her on the top of her whimple and it crumpled on her head. She laughed, but I ran home, thinking I was going to hell. My mother called the convent to ask her to speak to me to say it was OK.

My mother attended St. Mary's School, an Episcopal girls' boarding school in Sewanee, Tennessee. It was run by the Community of St. Mary, an order of Anglo-Catholic ("high church") nuns. Based on my mom's old yearbooks from the '50s, the cornettes they wore were almost identical to the ones the San Tanco gurls wore in [italic]The Flying Nun.[/italic]

R30 - these nuns?

Sweet story, R29

Yes, R31. St. Mary's in Sewanee was part of the OSM Southern Province.

^ Whoops, *CSM*

Television! It is the portal to much happiness.

The cornette

Very interesting video!

I don’t can’t what you wear, as long as you bow to me, and call me Mother Superior.”

Eve was weak.

Plumb, R39?

Knock yourselves out.

Here's a good one...

Flapjack

If you want god to love you like he loves me, you'll need a green silk cape and red shoes.

I don’t know which order, but it’s fantastic.

That's not a cape.

It's a chasuble.

R45, Sisters of the Holy Cross. Not an easy headdress to create or maintain.

r46 I think that green liturgical vestment that Benny is sporting there might actually be a DALMATIC. Hard to say definitively, it's been awhile since I was an altar boy. 😇

BEFORE

AFTER

Bronzie,

There is no way that the pope is wearing a dalmatic. Dalmatics are worn by deacons.

The late pope is wearing a chasuble.

This is a dalmatic.

Dalmatics have sleeves.

Chasubles do not.

R45, the CSC sisters were known as the Sunflower Sisters because of their distinctive headdress. I think it looks like a halo.

R53, I do too.

I'm wearing green silk drawers to match my cape!

Lovely

The distinctive headdress of the CSC Sisters required much labor to produce (not to mention starch). Here is a video of the "coif machine" they used to make those many pleats.

r46/r51/r52 I will always give a hat🎩 tip to anyone with superior knowledge. Chasuables have obviously changed since my early church days. I remember them not being longer than knee-length, unless the priest happened to be unusually short. Safe to assume Benedict's chasuble was tailor-made(Off the rack? Say it isn't so!)

Bronzie, you likely are referring to the so-called "fiddleback" chasubles that priests of the Roman Rite used to wear prior to the Second Vatican Council.

Yes, I suspect that Benedict had tailor-made vestments unless some of them are from an old Vatican collection. Chasubles don't really need to be custom tailored unless a priest is especially short or tall.

Thank you for the hat tip!

R47

Vatican II put the kibosh for most part on those elaborate headgear for female religious. That and many were just not suited to modern times including restricting peripheral vision. Many of those head dresses were great for keeping custody of the eyes; but not so good for navigating busy urban streets after invention of motor vehicles or otherwise being aware of one's surroundings.

R14, it made them look like barn owls.

You are 100% correct, R60.

Vatican II instructed religious communities (particularly of women) to adapt their dress to the times.

The Vatican II document on religious, "Perfectae Caritatis," states that

[quote] The religious habit, an outward mark of consecration to God, should be simple and modest, poor and at the same becoming.

EDIT: "...and at the same time becoming."

That’s a really interesting story that r7 posted, the Lutheran nuns originally from Germany ran a guesthouse for Holocaust survivors in Israel. Guests stayed for free. It was closing because remaining survivors were becoming too old to travel.

Would the priest clothing queens tell us what kind of underwear priests wear?

R62

Some female RC orders had to be dragged kicking and screaming into giving up their traditional holy habits for something modern.

On other side of things many blame Vatican II for mass exodus of women out of holy orders and many what remained "hotbeds of radical lesbianism".

In many ways religious life for RC women pre Vatican II (say before WWII and bit afterwards) versus what came afterwards by say 1980's or so was like night and day.

World seen in film or described in book "the Nun's Story" largely had gone or at least been updated from both contemplative and active orders.

Vatican II helped solve issues for RC women such as "Sister Luke" by saying there were other ways for them to be useful besides holy orders.

"Sister Luke's" problem was he wanted to be an excellent nurse first, but not always so much a nun. Her constant refusal to bend and ignore self will and follow the rule got her in trouble again and again.

Above being said same advice along those lines had long been given out to postulants and others considering convent or abbey. Mother Abbess in "Sound of Music" was quite correct in telling Sister Maria walls of that abbey were not built for hiding behind, but women had to sort themselves out, facing their problems instead. In short to live life they were born or should live.

In Sister Maria's case Mother Abbess knew she was not ever going to make a great or even good nun. OTOH Fraulein Maria would make an excellent wife and mother; something the RC also put a high value upon.

Let's have a fashion show!

Disgraced former DOJ head William Barr at r6.

Nuns always seem to be wearing coarse woolen underwear that chafes and irritates their lady nethers.

R69

Best there has ever been; Vatican fashion show from Fellini's "Roma"

As Rex Mottram quips in Brideshead Revisited, no one puts on a show like the Catholics.

Some of these are excellent. but I was taught by the Sisters of Charity and theirs was ... not among the best.

Daughters of Charity wore famous cornette from 1685 until 1964.

Another..

Change of habit even made the NYT.

For those who like a good read and want all the details.

Old versus new habit.

I don't know what the Pope is wearing, but I'm betting he's not wearing underwear.

Tidbit:

Caps worn by student nurses and alumni of Saint Vincent's hospital schools of nursing in NYC were loosely modeled on cornette of Daughters of Charity.

Another...

R14 wow. Looks like Penny Marshall to me!

Sister of Charity there on the right R81.

R84

Long and complicated story regarding Sisters of Charity and Daughters of Charity.

[quote] On other side of things many blame Vatican II for mass exodus of women out of holy orders

The sacrament of holy orders is the sacrament of ordination. Women never receive holy orders—just bishops, priests, and deacons—which makes them members of the hierarchy.

Women religious (both sisters and nuns) and brothers and monks are technically lay people who make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but they are neither ordained (holy orders) nor are they members of the hierarchy.

True! Women can receive only six of the seven sacraments.

Men, on the other hand, can receive all seven. Even one particular man is able to receive all seven sacraments in his lifetime.

One correction: monks are sometimes ordained.

Communities of monks (like Benedictines or Trappists) have both ordained and non-ordained members. They are all monks but some are ordained to the priesthood in order to serve their monastery by celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, etc.

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden is a novel about a 40ish divorced woman who becomes a nun in England. It was made into a movie with Diana Rigg which I think is on YouTube.

[quote]On other side of things many blame Vatican II for mass exodus of women out of holy orders and many what remained "hotbeds of radical lesbianism".

Didn't the same thing happen to Michfest?

[quote] Would the priest clothing queens tell us what kind of underwear priests wear?

I think that is up to the individual priest.

Burying fetuses in the cloister.

Old and new habits of Daughters of Charity

A short primer of Sister history in USA.

Many are totally unaware of just how much Catholic sisters accomplished in USA.

Since we're already down a very deep rabbit hole for a gay website, suggest anyone genuinely interested in learning more about Roman Catholic sisters and nuns in USA read excellent book "Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America"

One year after playing the monstrous Mrs. Henry Vale in film "Now Voyager", Gladys Cooper played another dragon in form of Sister Marie Therese Vauzous in film "Song of Bernadette.

For those who have never seen full movie, YT to the rescue.

The Sisters of Providence of St Vincent de Paul.

That’s very true, R94.

The first female pharmacist in North America was an Ursuline nun named Sister St. Francis Xavier Hebert, OSU.

C. 1697- May 8, 1762.

The Oblate Sisters of Providence was the first successful order for Black sisters in the US.

More on the Oblate Sisters. I like their hats. Very 19th c Southern.

Honey, this is a gay board. The only Song of Bernadette we care about are the ones sung by Ms. Peters.

God forgive me, but do the Sisters of Providence of St Vincent de Paul shown at r98 not look like they’re wearing labia and a clitoral hoods around their heads?

R75, Extra value is what you get, when you wear a cornette.

R103. OMG, you're right. They are shaped like a labia and clitoral hood!

Thank you R85, interesting stuff.

In case anyone was wondering, Daughters of Charity didn't go away after St. Vincent's hospital in Manhattan closed.

For some time now the sisters have been involved in affordable housing in and around NYC.

Make that supportive and affordable housing.

Former site of St. Agatha's orphanage (once run by the Daughters of Charity) became that latest new housing development.

Sister Jane Iannucelli, SC, who served on St. Vincent's hospital board of directors is still around as well.

1. Alcohol & Tobacco

2. Sleeping With Priests & Nuns

3. Cracking students with wooden rulers and yardsticks

4. A good old fashioned slap in the face.

5. Guilt Trips

Flicking their bean while churning the butter.

From last Sunday's NYT.

R45 reminded me to change my car’s air filter.

Is that Phil Donahue at r18?

That was great, r72.