The Magdalene Sisters movie review

I saw this absolutely horrifying, incredibly shocking movie tonight. It's an example of the abuses that can happen when the Church has absolute power. This movie, based on a true story, tells of the young women in Ireland who were sent to the Catholic-run Magdalen Asylums for "fallen women" in the mid-1900's. At this time in Ireland, the Church had the most power of any person or institution, especially when it concerned young women and morality. The DVD also includes a special documentary with interviews with some of the women who were incarcerated, some as young as 14.

In the Magdalen Asylums, women were made to work in silence in the laundry facilities all day with no pay, in order to pay penance for sexual immorality. The movie shows the abuse that occurred regularly at the hands of nuns (beatings, inhumane verbal abuse, and most horrifying, the shaving of long hair). Those sent to the Magdalen Asylums by their parents or priests went for having a child out of wedlock or being sexually immoral. Some were even there because they had been sexually violated and their families had abandoned them. Young women who were considered "flirtatious" or "too pretty" were also sent to the Magdalen laundries in order to prevent them from the inevitable "falling away".

The shocking thing is that the last Magdalen Asylum was closed in 1996. Nine years ago. It is thought that there were over 30,000 who stayed at the Magdalen Asylums. If you'd like to learn more, there's an excellent article here from Wikipedia.

The movie was sobering, and it made me think of the lies told to the Magdalens, as well as some of the things we sometimes tell young women today about their sexuality. The nuns told the women that sex was a sin, and that they had to work as hard as possible, avoiding all fleshly things in order to receive forgiveness from God. Sounds a little familiar...

In this movie, there was a lot of talk about living for God by the nuns, especially when they were chastising a Magdalen. They spoke of Him but lacked any evidence of love. Sadly, many former Magdalens have turned away from the church as a result of their abuse; and I can't really blame them.

One of the women's closing words from the documentary:

"I didn't see anything Godly in that church, I didn't see anything Christ-ly. All I saw was a bunch of bullies. That was all I... a bunch of bullies. And- devils dressed up in nuns' habits, that's the way I looked at it."