While they might get blamed for all of Ireland’s ills, even as another young generation prepares to set sail under the country’s most liberal government in its history, those from outside the country have shown more gratitude towards Irish nuns.
In a rare occurrence of mainstream media in the country providing fair and balanced reporting of church matters, state outlet RTE News reported that 21 former students of Our Lady of Lourdes School in Mankon, Cameroon.
The former students arrived in Ireland to thank the Holy Rosary Sisters who had educated them.
Anti clerical newspaper The Irish Times even reported of the importance of the Irish nuns for achieving gender equality in the African country:
Dr Minang added that the women were taught how to walk with their head up high, in a literal sense, but also in a figurative sense.
Sr Mary was emotional meeting her former students, but said she had been anxious beforehand, because she wanted “to get everything ready” and “everything right”.
Many students have been able to take their parents to the US and got them treatment for different conditions, she added, with one former student and her sister having moved their parents to the US, and then having brought them back home to Cameroon to be buried when they died.
She used to teach them to be equal to the boys, she said, adding that she had been “very strong on that”.
“The culture is that the woman is dominated by the man, that the man was the boss and it’s cultural,” Sr Mary said.
“The girls have that self-worth which I think is so important, they are children of God the same as the men.”
RTE News also wrote of the career opportunities opened up by the nuns to the young women, stating that they had achieved:
PhDs and Masters with careers in engineering, nursing, medicine
Perhaps the Irish church should spend less time giving into despair and more time highlighting these many amazing stories, which are representative of the overall picture of 20th century Irish Catholicism.