Sometimes I read an article and want to talk back to it.

Former Carmelite nun accuses order of abuse at Victorian parliamentary inquiry

Mary Hughes had just turned 17 when she decided to join the Carmelite Monastery in the Melbourne suburb of Kew.

Good for her!

Ms Hughes would spend 60 years with the Carmelites, rising up the ranks to the position of Superior at the Wagga Wagga Carmelite monastery in NSW. 

According to Chat, the Superior is the boss of the convent.

But now aged 78, Ms Hughes looks back on her time with the Carmelite monastery as deeply restrictive and a breach of her trust.

But she stayed there her whole life and became the boss?

She told the ABC the order she joined was more strict than others she met in Australia and around the world, which is why she thinks the Melbourne order specifically is a fringe group. 

She doesn’t believe they live the “Carmelite life”. Instead, she told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into cults and fringe groups, she believes the order preyed on her innocence and devout faith. 

I hope she didn’t prey on anyone’s innocence and devout faith once she became the Superior herself.

This is like David Miscavige leaving Scientology then complaining to an inquiry that it was abusive.

Unlike some more universally acknowledged cults, Catholic orders have a process if you want out and you can then return to being a normal parishioner.

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