Recently I read at
www.jesus-is-lord.com/charlot1.htm
the testemony of Sister Charlotte about the atrocities she suffered in the Convent. I was deeply shocked upon reading it and took some interest in the case. Later I checked the site:
www.angelfire.com/ms/seanie/forgeries/charlottewells.html
where that testemony is said to be false. I have to agree that it sounds strange that she never mentioned the name of the place where it happened and also upon hearing the recorded tape I thought her mood is simply too dry while narrating, as I would expect a person who really suffered all that to break in tear even while remembering it. Moreover, it seems that everything relies on her words, for no proof or witness ever appeared. What do you think? Is it a true account or just sensationalist anti-catholic propaganda?
2007-05-10 05:45:42 · 21 answers · asked by dada 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Charlotte Wells was not her real name, and she has been deceased since 1983. One wonders why she felt the need to hide her real identity behind a pseudonym; after all, it would be easy then to check if she were ever in the convent she claimed to be in, whether the events described really happened. There is substantial evidence that her real name was Keckler, among which being the appearance of the exact same story under this name.
she, nor those who knew her, are able to produce a single shred of evidence for this big lie. (Note: the individuals who knew this woman all knew her after her supposed convent horror. Sadly they were only too willing to believe her cock and bull story.)
In one part of her story she says:
'I'm not afraid of anybody in all of this world. I'm a child of God. And I believe God won't let anybody put a hand on me until my work is finished.'
If she was so unafraid and convinced she was doing right, why did she hide her name all the time?
If her story were true, it should have been possible to come up with some kind of evidence for her story. But, as with so many other anti-Catholic tales, there is none.
Carmelite convents have a maximum of 20 nuns, yet Charlotte Wells claimed 180 nuns in her own wing. Needless to say, the name of this convent is not available.
Furthermore, the Carmelites order is cloistered, meaning the nuns never leave the convent to go outside into the world. This is in contrast to an open order, where the nuns can go outside. In the story Charlotte Wells/Keckler claims to be cloistered yet aslo claims to be a nursing sister, which would mean she would have leave the cloister to get to work!
Tthere is no such thing as a cloistered order which does hospital work, as the two are mutually exclusive. If she was cloistered, she could not go outside to work in the hospital!
Though it is quite possible Wells/Keckler was once Catholic (I have seen a photo), the taped recording of her story uses such contorted phrases as 'going to confessional' and 'the fourteen steps that Jesus carried the cross of Calvary'? Why did she not just use the proper terms 'going to Confession' and 'the Stations of the Cross'? The defense that the terms used by Charlotte made more sense to Protestant ears is invalid: she could quite easily have defined the Catholic terms before using them in the taped testimony. In any case, as many Catholic would have heard her story as well. She also avoids the terms "novice" and "professed" which is quite bizarre for the story of a supposed nun, wouldn't you think?
she claims that she had to make her later vows using her own blood. What nonsense.
She said that the nuns are led to ''believe that her family will be saved. It doesn't make any difference how many banks they rob, how many stores they rob. It doesn't make any difference how they drink and smoke and carouse and live out in this sinful world and do all the things that sinners do. It doesn't make a bit of difference. Our family will be saved if we continue to live in the convent and give our lives to the convent and to the Church--we can rest assured that other members of our immediate family will be saved'
This is a ludicrous distortion of the Catholic doctrine of grace. It claims that one is not accountable for ones's sins before God so long as a family member is in the convent!
the alleged "testimony" of Charlotte Wells suffers from the fact that there is no convent name where these events supposedly took place; there is no history of the individual who relates it until long after the supposed events took place (the name Charlotte Wells being a pseudonym, as mentioned earlier, for Charlotte Keckler); there was no reason for the nun in question to hide her identity, if she were speaking the truth; there are no other sources in the story, no references, no named third parties which could support this story. In total: NOTHING.
The stories Charlotte Wells recounts of abuse, torture, and illicit sex are nothing but fiction which can never be substantiated. In any case Charlotte Wells, conveniently for her story, does not name the convent she was in.
The 'testimony' of Charlotte Wells has all the hallmarks of an outrageous story of anti-Catholic nonsense based on the earlier work of Maria Monk. In keepng with this genre, there is not an ounce of factual evidence, no names or addresses, just sensationalism.
2007-05-10 06:05:44 · answer #1 · answered by SpiritRoaming 7 · 11⤊ 27⤋
Sister Charlotte
2017-01-09 08:42:10 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes...Simply because the theme of it sounds plausible. People that look to contradict small details show a petty , almost childlike way to win the argument.
Its highly improbable that this goes on in all convents but would have been the practice of a very small number which has decreased over time. Why decreasing? easy....just think of pastimes priests had 100+ years ago and compare to todays technology.
Going into the theme a little more...and remember this is only an educated guess as the question suggests a think.
By making money out of people with things that that cannot be disproved by societies' present thinking gives no motivation to change(life after death...100days less suffering etc). Also those in power of bad nature will take advantage of the uneducated. With these two axioms alone you can see why this would be feasible account of the nun has stated.
2015-07-02 17:54:26 · answer #3 · answered by Adrian 1 · 4⤊ 1⤋
What could her motive have been to make all of this up? SpiritRoaming, she did not say that she was a nursing nun and a cloistered nun at the same time. She said she was in open order until she became cloistered. It could have been her intent for any number of reasons not to reveal during the course of this recording the name and/or location of the convent she lived in. This shouldn't be taken to mean that these things didn't happen. She also may not have known where she was living or how to point back to it. I don't believe that all convents are like this. I'm sure that many of them are fairly normal places to live. If there was a concentration of unethical, amoral and/or cruel people in positions of power at this convent, these things could have taken place, just as horrible things take place in all kinds of settings - schools, churches, hospitals, halls of government, etc.
2014-07-31 10:49:24 · answer #4 · answered by Lalo 1 · 3⤊ 0⤋
I can't say if it's true or false, however, I can tell you that some of the technology described in the narrative couldn't have reasonably existed in the 1920s (which is the latest she would have entered the convent, if she left in the 1940s). She describes the entire convent being "wired" and that "buzzers" were put in place to catch escaping nuns. Keep in mind that according to Charlotte the entire "dungeon" complex had been created by uneducated nuns with shovels-- so how did they manage to "wire" the whole complex? It makes no sense.
She also describes being both an RN and a cloistered nun-- she couldn't have been both. Unless she became an RN first. However, this is never explained.
2014-02-01 12:41:07 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 4⤋
Has the church responded to these allegations? Can the church open up their convents for neutral or statutory inspections? If there are no secrets- why the cloistering?
As much as I doubt the veracity of this testimony, I'm also reminded of the age old aphorism that there's some truth in every rumor. Some strong conviction must be driving this woman to make these profound allegations. I will be doing some further readings, so that I can gain a better insight into all of this
2013-10-17 11:16:58 · answer #6 · answered by Brother 1 · 7⤊ 1⤋
In answer to this question:
My Grandmother, (who 83 and still living and in her sane mind) met this woman personally and hear her recount her life story. Sister Charlotte took a group of women (including my grandmother) into a room and showed them the horrible scars on her back and horrible burns and where the crosses had been literally burned into her flesh on her back. To anyone who knows a little about her..Sister Charlotte went by a few different alias names when she was living..so it shouldn't surprise anyone that perhaps there might be a bit of confusion about her death record, etc.
My grandparents were also Christian missionaries to South America and Mexico in the late 1930's and into the 1940's and my grandmother toured a closed order/cloistered convent in Mexico (which had been raided and opened to the public by government officials) and still remember the horrors she witnessed there. As Sister Charlotte claimed, there were dead nuns sealed in glass coffins..
2014-05-23 22:33:32 · answer #7 · answered by Grace 1 · 7⤊ 3⤋
If testimony is true...it provides evidence of a deep-seeded evilness in this world...that Satan is doing his works in men/women. If Testimony is false..it still sheds light into the evilness of men/women who would invent/fabricate such a thing. Only God is truth...he is good/righteous/holy/friend/father/merciful/just/faithful/all powerful creator/the great IAM/the beginning and the end/the alpha & the omega. God is spirit - his Word is spirit & life..he indwells with faith/the promised Holy Spirit those who receive/believe/ask/call and knock/those who confess Jesus as Lord. Anything outside of God/Jesus is evil. One can only come to the Father through Jesus. He is the truth, the way and the Life. He provides a peace and a love that transcends all understanding....he comforts and gives hope in times of trouble. May this testimony be true or false, I just hope and pray that the person behind this testimony has died a saved person.
2014-11-12 16:24:22 · answer #8 · answered by Jillian C. Kogej 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
i believe that her story is true after much pondering it and reading other sources and I simply asked the Lord to show me if it s true or not! I believe that the horrible truth of the catholic church is being revealed in these last days and it will be judged by God! I grew up in the catholic church in the 1960s and was a good little catholic girl who was taught to obey all rules of the church and to obey whatever the nuns and priests told us to do or taught us. We were never supposed to rebel or question our faith, not only that we were told that catholic belief is the one true faith and the one true church!! Even at that time there were rumors of convent horrors such as this and it was common knowledge that priests would still have sex with nuns. Well, i am a born-again christian and filled with the Holy Spirit now. Many have escaped catholic lies by the Lord s amazing grace. RFMarnocha
2015-06-15 07:27:00 · answer #9 · answered by rosemary 1 · 6⤊ 1⤋
I have no doubt that her testimony is true. I was born and raised a catholic and became a missionary when only 19. However, I came to realize from personal experience that the Catholic Church is without doubt the most corrupt organisation ever, but I know one day it will be exposed for what it really is.
2014-07-01 11:33:05 · answer #10 · answered by The Philosopher 2 · 10⤊ 2⤋
Sister Charlotte's testimony sounds like the worst form of protestant propaganda. Very similar in many details to what my fundamentalist great grandmother believed of convents -- nuns being bedded by priests, etc. I have known a fair number of nuns in my life and find this testimony to be totally over-the-top.
2013-12-25 07:19:12 · answer #11 · answered by mouse 1 · 3⤊ 13⤋