dir. Nancy Tong, USA/HK/China 2013.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3176456/
“I wasn’t into conversion– I was into healing.”
With strong women currently well in demand (and command) as cinematic role models, it is refreshing to take another look at recent history to find so many real-life ones quietly doing great works globally, especially during parts of the 20th century in which gender roles were ostensibly more narrow in both Western and Eastern societies. The stories of the Maryknoll Sisters and their missions abroad, along with their work at home in the United States, bridges the sacrifices of a religious life with a relatable, even secular approach to progressive humanitarianism. As the Catholic Church itself, and Pope Francis in particular, has recently undertaken some notable course correction in its messaging and outreach, these Sisters have been steadfastly practicing such progressive openness for over a century, providing food, medicine, education, and most importantly, respect, not as exports, but as rights to underserved communities the world over, without proselytizing or requiring any sort of religious allegiance as a prerequisite.
Documentarian Nancy Tong interviews historians and journalists in addition to a number of Sisters who served during, and helped bring about, key moments of social change, from joining their Japanese American students in internment, to enduring mob violence and scorn while under house arrest in post-WWII China, to founding the first racially integrated hospital in America (Queen of the World Hospital in Kansas City, MI, established in 1955, nearly 10 years before the Civil Rights Act did away with segregation at the Federal level). Nicholas Kristof in particular makes some salient observations on camera, noting that in today’s world, women of such education, resources, and determination would go on to become leaders of industry and other institutions, whereas throughout most of Maryknoll’s history, a woman’s options were far more limited, and religious missions provided the best opportunities to use and develop their skills further, and ultimately mentor the generation of women who gained the opportunities to bring that promise of leadership, as well as a strongly nurtured capacity for volunteerism.
The Sisters themselves relate that it was either marriage or the convent for young women of the time; nuns were the single female professionals that society could then accept. That limitation and the drive to push through it within the system explains much of the resourcefulness and ambition of those Sisters to bring their aid to “those most in need”, even before fully understanding what that entailed. Maryknoll’s earliest missionaries in China, whose journals are read in voiceover by Susan Sarandon, were given little to no guidance as to specifics, but were instructed to learn the culture, not try to change it.
Kristof, as a public figure who has been critical of disrespectfully anti-religious atheist arguments as well as the oppression of women in organized religion, brings the credibility of a moderate in the culture wars in which the loudest voices on both sides tend to drown out all others. “I’ve reported on some of the worst of religion — such as smug, sanctimonious indifference among Christian fundamentalists at the toll of AIDS among gay men — yet I’ve also been awed by nuns and priests risking their lives in war zones,” he wrote in the 2012 column referenced above, and some of those nuns paid the ultimate price, like the four who lost their lives during the civil war in El Salvador that raged from 1980-1992. He also confirms that the Maryknoll missionaries carried out their work without requiring conversion or any steps towards it, lending an outsider’s weight to the nuns’ own tellingly powerful recollections.
In one instance, a Sister recalls her time in the wards full of dying patients, who were thankful just to have a friend who would listen. One of the patients offered to be baptized if she thought it would help, to which she gently responded that they didn’t need to baptize him, they just needed to get him better. At the same time, she might be moved by a patient clutching a crucifix in bed– there can be a relief in channeling one’s mental energy into a silent prayer, decoupled from larger belief systems. In this way, one can read the humanitarian objectives as the Sisters expressing God’s love, without the baggage of spreading His word– the Almighty in the abstract compulsion to figure out how to do Good.
What Maryknoll’s history demonstrates then, over the events related in the film, is how individuals and institutions collaboratively develop solutions to societal inequalities, organically propelling social progression along the way. The Sisters did not set out to take a stand on gender roles, yet naturally set an example ahead of their time by having junior priests under their direction in Hong Kong, while there are still Catholic sects today that place their most experienced nuns in a lower order than the greenest of holy men.
And echoing Kristof’s sentiments, in a time when there were few if any women accepted into executive positions, the Sisters became role models to generations of young women, such as their students at the girls’ schools they established in Hong Kong, who at the time otherwise had no one in the public eye to inspire and inform their personal and professional visions. The amount of respect with which these students and the Sisters treated each other is evident in the stock footage of the young women orderly and cheerfully assembled in uniform on the school greens, shaking hands with their new teachers with assured poise. The coveted admission to the school carried with it an instilled sense of volunteerism, as the students committed to community work on the weekends, leading to many of them choosing careers in public service and government following their matriculation, becoming many of the first prominent Hong Kong women in such posts.
This propulsion of gender equality also extended racially in Maryknoll’s presence in the American South of the 1950’s, again not setting out to be radical, but naturally slotting in where the need was greatest, thereby creating the opportunities for empowerment in their racially integrated medical facilities. Progressivism out of practicality is a recurring theme in this documentary, and it’s comforting to see such change come about collaboratively with human instincts and empathy richer than mere iconoclasm.
The nuns’ own wants versus needs similarly humanize their presence and projects, as one of the Sisters discusses the challenges in dealing with sexual desires and other relatable wants, as simple as a nice bottle of wine or a warm corduroy jacket. Their recollections of the wearying nature of the training undergone before going out on missions, including mandated silences at mealtimes and other normally social opportunities, also highlights their dedication to their work in an empathetic way– the viewer recognizes that while the Sisters found many aspects of the training as unenjoyable as anyone would, they also came out of it empowered after “passing the test”, to face whatever unknown challenges came next. Even so, it’s not clear that such personal sacrifices are absolutely necessary to establish a life of service, which is perhaps why the institution now has many more opportunities for lay missionaries to participate without needing to commit to the monastic aspects of the life.
And yet, those aspects do have public power– the iconic nature of the habits, as well as the outfits that followed that some found more comfortable, delineates nuns in society at large, and images of Maryknoll sisters standing side by side and marching with African-American civil rights activists in the struggle to end segregation indelibly aided such causes. And it is currently perhaps more important than ever to be able to see all of the spectrum spanned by religious life, as Pope Francis endeavors to adjust the more famously intolerant and insular aspects of the Catholic institution, even while the Little Sisters of the Poor put forth a less progressive front in their lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate.
Fittingly, many contemporary Catholics such as writer Richard Rodriguez are now calling more attention to the work of strong women to propel a more inclusive and empathetic Church. “The wind that is blowing now is not Pope Francis,” he says in an interview with Latino USA’s Maria Hinorosa in which he discusses his experiences finding support as a gay Catholic, “but it’s the Church as a female institution.” That wind has been blowing for decades, and is perhaps now picking up enough speed for others to notice the impact it’s been having all along.
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