A Nun's Testimony - Part 1 — Sister Charlotte

Hi, this is David Mould from Lehman for Religious Liberty. The tape that you're about to listen to is an exceedingly graphic and gripping tape. It's a testimony of an ex-nun by the name of Sister Charlotte, who disappeared approximately two years after having given this testimony.

If you have young children with you, you may wish to screen this tape and listen to it yourself before determining whether you want your child to hear the material that is on it. We're releasing this tape in Jamaica, not that we might engender any hatred toward the Roman Catholic Church or the Roman Catholic people, but rather that you might be educated, educated as to the other side of Roman Catholicism.

The Pope is coming sometime around October 12, 1992. We'd like to flood Jamaica with copies of this tape that, when he comes, some brave soul might be inspired to ask. Well, John Paul, what can you tell us about Sister Charlotte?

To be forewarned is to be forearmed. You probably received this tape without paying anything for it. We wish to let you know that you have our permission to duplicate it as many, many times as you wish, but please do not charge.

Give the tapes away, spread them far and wide, that Jamaica might receive the education of a lifetime. Thank you.

First of all, I always like to tell folk I'm not giving this testimony because I have any ill feeling in my heart toward the Roman Catholic people. I couldn't be a Christian if I still had bitterness in my heart.

God delivered me from all bitterness and strife and delivered me out of all of that one day and made himself real to me in the power of the Holy Spirit. And so when I give this testimony, I'm giving it because after God saved me, he delivered me out of the convent and out of bondage and darkness.

The Lord laid the burden upon my heart to give this testimony that others might know what cloistered convents are. And so as you listen carefully this afternoon, I trust I will not say one thing that will leave any feeling in your heart whatsoever that I don't carry a burden for the Roman Catholic people.

I don't like the things they do. I don't agree with the things that they teach, but I covet their soul for Jesus. I'm interested in their souls. I believe Jesus went to Calvary. He died that you and I might know him.

And their souls are just as precious as your soul and my soul. So I'm interested. Now as we slip into this testimony, having been born in Roman Catholicism, not knowing anything else, not knowing the Word of God because we didn't have a Bible in our home, we had never heard anything about this wonderful plan of salvation.

Childhood in Roman Catholicism and the Decision to Enter a Convent

And so naturally I grew up in that Roman Catholic home as a child, knowing only the Catechism, knowing only the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. And because I loved the Lord and because I wanted to do something for him, I wanted to give him my life, I didn't know of any other way for a Roman Catholic girl to give her life to God other than entering a convent.

And through going to the confessional box where naturally I'm under the influence of my father confessor, the Roman Catholic priest, his influence over my life, one day I made up my mind through his influence and one of my teachers in the parochial school that I wanted to be a little sister.

At that time I thought of being a sister of the open order. But as I went on into this, up until the time I took my white veil, sixteen and a half years of age, everything was beautiful. I really didn't have any fear in my heart whatsoever, everything was taught to me was seemingly along the line that I had been taught in the church before I entered a convent.

And so one day after having been, after making up my mind to enter a convent, I remember that particular day, two of the sisters came home with me from school, they were my teachers, and when we arrived at my father's home that afternoon, our father confessor was in the home likewise.

I often say when I was a little girl children were seen and not heard. You didn't talk when you was a child, at least you didn't in my family, in my home, unless you were spoken to. And I remember I listened to them carry on a conversation and then I moved over close enough to my father to ask him if I could say something.

That was a bit out of the ordinary and he permitted me to talk and I said, Dad, I want to go into a convent. And I'll tell you that priest took it up quickly. It had already been influencing me. My father broke down and began to cry, not because he's sad but he's very happy.

My mother came over and took me in her arms and she too wept tears, she was very happy. Those were not tears of sadness because I think her little girl was giving her life to the convent to pray for lost humanity.

And naturally my family were very thrilled about it and I was too. Didn't go for about a year after that and then the time come when I got myself ready and my mother prepared things for me and so I entered the convent.

Separation from Home and Early Convent Training

They took me and we didn't have a place close enough to my father and mother's home so I think they took me around a thousand miles away from home where I entered a convent boarding school. I liked about three months being 13 years of age, just a little girl.

I look back on it now and think, my, homesick, I was so homesick. Why my mother and daddy they stayed three days with me and when they left I became so homesick naturally, why shouldn't I? Just a baby away from home.

And when I was a little girl, you know, I had never spent a night away from my mother and I surely had never gone any place without my family. And naturally there was a close tie in our family and I was very lonely and very homesick.

But I'll never forget after dad and mother told me goodbye and I knew they were traveling a long distance away from me and I had never realized in my heart I'll never see them again. Naturally I hadn't planned it like that because I planned to be a sister of the open order.

But if you listen carefully to this portion of the testimony then you'll understand just why I'm saying some of the things that I say. Now often times we say the priest selects his material through the confessional box because at seven years of age I went to confessional.

Seven years of age I would always, when I come into the church, first I'd slip over at the feet of the crucifix, rather the Virgin Mary and then over at the feet of the crucifix and I'd ask the Virgin Mary to help me make a good confession.

Because I was a child and my heart was honest and I knew the priest had taught us to always make a good confession, keep nothing back, tell everything if I expected absolution from any sin that I might have committed.

So I would ask the Virgin Mary to help me make a good confession. And I would ask then Jesus to help me make a good confession. And you know I'll assure you when I, after I lived in the convent for a short period of time, now I had to go on with my schooling, I'd just finished the eighth grade and they promised me to give me a high school education, some college education.

But I didn't get much college, I got mostly just high school training. And they gave that to me alright, I took it under some terrible difficulties and strains and all of that, it was rather difficult.

But they gave it to me for which I appreciate very, very much. But I'll assure you after they put me through the crucial training that we must go through to become just a little novitiate entering a convent, the training is really, it's outstanding as far as a nun is concerned and you know what it's all about after you've been in there for a little while.

The White Veil and Becoming the Bride of Christ

So now I've entered the convent and for just a few minutes we want to tell you just a little bit how we live, what we eat, how we sleep. If I take you into the convent and tell you those things you'll understand a little bit more about my testimony.

First, as I entered the convent as a small child, I went on to school, but I was being trained, but the day came, possibly I was fourteen and a half, when the Mother Spirit began to tell me about the white veil.

And I didn't know too much about it, but taking the white veil they told me that I would become the spouse or the bride of Jesus Christ. There would be a ceremony and I would be dressed in a wedding garment.

And on this particular morning, they told me at nine o 'clock, they would dress me up in a wedding garment. Now you're wondering where that comes from and how they get the wedding clothes for the little nuns.

The Mother Spirit sits down and writes a letter to my father and tells him how much money she wants. And then, whatever she asks, my father sends it and she, the little buying sister, goes out and buys the material and the wedding gown is made by the nuns of the cloister.

I'm still open order now. And of course, whatever she asks, now you say, did they spend all the money for the wedding gown? Well, of course, we don't know these things in the very beginning of our testimony.

But after we live in a convent for a little while, we learn to know they could ask my father for $100 and he'd send it. And they wouldn't use maybe a third of that for the wedding garment, but they would keep the rest of it.

My father would never know the difference, neither did I, until I lived in the convent for a period of time. And I had to make some of the wedding clothes and then I knew the value of them and what they cost and I knew of the money that came in because I was one of the older nuns.

Well, all right. The time came, of course, when I walked down that aisle and I was dressed in a wedding garment. Now, you know, in the convent, I used to walk the 14 stations of the cross, the 14 steps that Jesus carried the cross to Calvary.

But after I had made up my mind to take the white veil, never again did I walk. I wanted to be worthy. I wanted to be holy enough to become the spouse of the bride of Jesus Christ. And so I would get out on my knees and crawl the 14 stations.

It's quite a distance. But I crawled them. Every Friday morning, I felt it would make me holy. I felt it would draw me closer to God. It would make me worthy of the step that I was going to take. And that's what I wanted more than anything in the world.

Motives of Girls Entering Convents and Promises of Salvation

I would like to impress on your hearts. Every little girl that enters the convent that I know anything about, that child has a desire to live for God. That child has a desire to give her heart, mind, and soul to God.

Now, many, many people make this remark, and we hear it from various types of folk, who say only bad women go into convents. That isn't true. There are movie stars who go into convents. They've lived out in the world.

No doubt they are sinners and all of that. But they go in when they're women. They know what they're doing. And they go in only because the Roman Catholic Church is going to receive not only thousands, but, yea, it'll run up into the millions of dollars.

And they don't mind who they take in if they can get a lot of money out of that individual. But the ordinary little girl that goes in as a child, she's just a child. And she goes in there with a heart and mind and soul just as clean as any child could be.

I say that because sometimes we hear a lot of things that are really not true. Now, after we become the spouse of Jesus Christ, I want you to listen carefully to this, and then you can follow me into the rest of the testimony.

We are now looked upon as married women. We are looked upon as married women. We are the spouse or the bride of Jesus Christ. Now, the priest teaches every little girl that will take the white veil, they'll become the bride of Christ.

He teaches her 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. Still, our family will be saved if we continue to live in the convent and give our life to the convent or to the church. We can rest assured that every member of our immediate family will be saved.

And you know there are many little children that are influenced and enticed to go into convents because we realize it is a salvation for our families. And sometimes even Roman Catholic families, the children grow up and leave the Roman Catholic Church and go out into the deepest of sin.

And so every little girl that enters a convent is hoping by her sacrificing so much, home and loved ones, mother and daddy, everything that a child loves, her family will be saved regardless of what sins they commit.

And of course we are children and our minds are immature and we don't know any better. And it's so easy to instill things like this into the hearts and minds of little children. And the priest is really, he's really good at it.

Clerical Authority and the Loss of Personal Freedom

And of course we look upon our priest, our father confessor, I looked upon him as God. He's the only God I knew anything about. And to me he was infallible. I didn't think he could sin. I didn't think that he would lie.

I didn't think that he ever made a mistake. I looked upon him as the holiest of holy because I didn't know a God but I did know the Roman Catholic priest. And to me, I looked to him for everything that I asked of any of God, so to speak.

I believed the priest could give it to me. And so the day comes when all of us, now as we're going in I want you to listen carefully. After taking the white veil, things are beautiful. I'm 16 and a half years of age.

Everyone's good to me. And I'm living in the convent and I haven't seen anything yet. Because no little girl, we're not subject to a Roman Catholic priest until we're 21 years of age. And as we give you this next vow, then you'll understand that we don't know about this.

This is kept from the little sisters until we've taken our black veil. And then it's too late. I don't carry the keys to those double doors. And there's no way for me to come out. The priest will tell all over the whole United States and other countries that sisters, or nuns rather, can walk out of convents when they want to.

I spent 22 years there. I did everything there was to do to get out. I've carried tablespoons with me into the dungeons and tried to dig down into that dirt because there's no floors in those places. But I never yet found myself digging far enough to get out of a convent with a tablespoon.

And that's about the only instrument. Because when we're using the spade, and we do have to do hard, heavy work, when we use a spade, we're being guarded, we're being watched by two older nuns, and they're going to report on us.

And I'll assure you, you're not going to try to dig out with a spade, and you wouldn't get very far anyway, because they've made those convents or built those convents so little nuns cannot escape. That was their purpose in building them as they build them.

And there's no way for us to get out unless God makes a way. But I believe God's making a way for numbers of little girls after they come out of the convents. All right, now when the time comes, I think I was 18 when the mother began talking to me.

The Black Veil, Poverty, and Purgatory

Now, I planned to come out, see, after my white veil. I wanted to be a little nursing sister in the Roman church. But the Mother Superior, I suppose she was watching my life. I suppose she realized I had much endurance, I had a strong body.

And I believe the woman was watching me, because one day she asked me to come into her office, and she began to tell me, Charlotte, you have a strong body. And she said, I believe you have the possibilities of making a good nun, a cloistered nun.

I believe you're the type that would be willing to give up home, give up mother and daddy, give up everything you love out in the world, and the world, so to speak, and hide yourself away behind convent doors, because I believe you're the kind who would hide back there and be willing to sacrifice and live in crucial poverty that you might pray for lost humanity.

She said, I believe you're the kind who'd be willing to suffer, because we are taught to believe as nuns that as we suffer, our loved ones and your loved ones that are already in a priest's purgatory will be delivered from purgatory sooner because of our suffering.

She knew I was willing to suffer. I didn't murmur. I didn't complain. She knew all of that, and she's watching my life, and that's the reason she began to tell me about the black veil. And then, of course, you know, I didn't know too much about a cloistered nun.

I didn't know their life. I didn't know how they lived. I didn't know what they'd done. But, you know, this woman proceeded to tell me. Now, I hear a lot of people try to tell me in the various places that we travel and go.

I hear a lot of Roman Catholics try to tell me I've been in so many cloisters, I know all about them. But, you know, a Roman Catholic can lie to you, and they don't have to go to confession and tell the priest about the lie that they told because they're lying to protect their faith.

They can tell any lie they want to to protect their faith and never go to the confessional box and tell the priest about it. They can do more than that. They can steal up to $40, and they don't have to tell the priest about it.

They don't have to say one word about it in the confessional box. They are taught that. Every Roman Catholic knows it, and every Roman Catholic, you'd be horrified, you know how many of them steal up to that amount.

And many of them lie. We've dealt with them. I've dealt with hundreds and hundreds of them. I've seen a good many of them fall into the altar and cry out to God to save them. And, you know, before they're saved, they look into my face and hold my hand and lie to me.

But after God gets a hold of their heart, then they want to make right what they've told me because they realize they've lied about it. But as long as they're a Roman Catholic, they're permitted to lie, and it's the saddest thing.

You can't expect them to know God because God does not condone sin. I don't care who you are, but I don't believe God condones sin. And I don't believe He's going to condone it to the Roman Catholic people, even though they're being misled and they're being blinded and led in the ways that's going to lead them into devil's hell.

I believe that with all of my heart because I've lived in a convent and I know something about how those people live and what they do. Now the day comes. She told me, Charlotte, you'll have to be willing to spill your blood.

As Jesus said, She said you'll have to be willing to do penance, heavy penance. She said you'll have to be willing to live in crucial poverty. Now already I'm living in a bit of poverty, but I thought that was going to make me holy and draw me closer to God and it would make me a better nun, and so I'm willing to live in that poverty.

And then on this particular morning, she told me what I would be wearing. She said you'll spend nine hours in a casket. And she explained a number of things to me. That's the most I knew about it. And I didn't find that out until I'd taken my white veil.

The Casket Ceremony and Perpetual Vows

And so on this particular morning, I'm 21 years of age, but 60 days previous to my being 21 years of age, I'm going to sign some papers that they placed in front of me, and those papers are this. I'm going to sign away every bit of inheritance that I might have received from my family after their death.

Of course, I signed that over to the Roman Catholic Church. And oftentimes I say the Roman Catholic priests are enticing girls, not only their background, not only their strong bodies, their strong minds and strong wills, but he's enticing girls where mothers and fathers have much property.

And they are comforted to be fixed to the material things of this life. Why? Because when that child enters the convent, they're going to get a portion of her money, of her father's money. And I often say even salvation in the Roman Catholic Church is going to cost you plenty of money, more than you know anything about.

And so they don't mind commercializing off of that child and the inheritance that would have come to her. And so on this particular morning, I told the Mother Spirit, give me a little while to think it over.

She didn't make me do it. No one did. But I thought it over for a couple of years. And then one day I told her, I think I'm going to hide away behind the convent doors because I believed I could give more time to God.

I could pray more. Maybe I would be in a position where I could inflict more pain upon my body because we are taught to believe that God smiles down out of heaven as we do penance, whatever the suffering might be.

And I didn't know any better because I often say if you could only look into the hearts of little nuns, if you are a Christian, you would immediately cry out before God in behalf of those little girls because to me we are heathens.

It doesn't make any difference the amount of education we may have. We are still heathens. We know nothing about this lovely Christ, nothing about the plan of salvation, and we're living as hermits in the convent.

And so on this particular morning, I come walking down in Nile again, similar to that. And may I say, the morning before, I can't go into it too deep because I never would be able to cover enough of it so you could understand it.

But this morning, I'm walking down that aisle but I don't have a wedding garment on. I have a funeral shroud. It's made of dark red velvet and it's way down to the floor. And I'm walking down that aisle.

Now I know what I'm going to do. The casket is all ready made by the nuns of the cloister. Very rough boards and it's sitting right out here. And I know when I come down there that I'll step in that casket and lay my body down and I'm going to spend nine hours in there.

And two little nuns will come and cover me up with a heavy black cloth we call a heavy drape mortel. And you know, it's so heavily incensed that I feel like I'll smother to death and I have to stay there.

Now I know when I come out of that casket, I'll never leave the convent again. I know I'll never see my mother and father again. I'll never go home again. I'll always live behind convent doors and when I die, my body will be buried there.

They told me that so I knew it even before I'd done it. It's a great price to pay then to find out that convents are not religious orders as we were taught and as we were trained. It's quite a disappointment to a young girl that's given her life to God and willing to give up so much and sacrifice so much.

I'll assure you it was a disappointment. And so after I spent those nine... You say, what did you do while you lay in that casket? What do you think I did? I spilled every tear in my body. I remembered every lovely thing my mother done for me.

I remembered her voice. I remembered the gathering around the table. I remembered the times when she would pray with us. I remember the things that she said to me. I remember what a marvelous cook she was.

Everything as a little girl growing up in that home, I remembered it laying in that casket knowing I'll never hear her voice again. I'll never see her face again. I'll never put my feet under her table again and enjoy her good cooking.

I knew all that and so maybe for four hours I spilled all the tears in my body because it was so hard and I knew I'd get homesick. I knew I'd want to see her someday but I gave it all up. What for? For the love of God.

I thought I didn't know any better and I'll assure you those were nine long hours and then I seemingly got a hold of myself and I thought, Dear Charlotte, now you're going to make the best Carmelite nun because everything I've ever done, even that I'm out of the convent, I do give my best.

I try to give everything that I have in regardless what I might do and so I did in the convent. I gave the best that I have and I wanted to be the best nun that I could possibly be and the Mother Superior knew that and don't worry, the priest knew all about it too.

Vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience

Now I realize after I walk out of that casket or come out of it, they're going to take me like this, over here and right back here is a room. We call it the Mother Superior's room. Now I've never been in that particular room so I don't know what she has in there but you know when I walk in there this time the Mother Superior sits me down in a straight back hard bottom chair and immediately then I'm going to take three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and you know as I take those vows she opens a little place in the lobe of my ear and takes out a portion of blood because I must sign every vow in my own blood and after that happens then I'm going to take the vow of poverty.

Now when I sign that vow I sign it thus and I'm willing to live in crucial poverty, the balance of my life as long as I live and what that poverty is like of course we don't know and then my next vow I'm going to a vow of chastity and you know this vow of course you know what it means I'm taught to believe that I'm married to Jesus Christ I'm his bride.

I'll always remain a virgin. I'll never legally marry again in this world because I have become the spouse of the bride of Jesus Christ after the bishop married me to Christ he placed the ring on my finger and that meant I'm sealed to Christ.

I'm married to him and I accepted it because I didn't know any better. And now here I am taking a vow that I would always remain a virgin because I'm the bride of Christ and I want you to listen carefully.

And then of course my last vow of obedience. Now when we sign that vow I'll assure you already I know what obedience means. I'm living in a convent and there they demand absolute obedience. You don't get by with anything not even for two minutes.

I mean you don't get by with it. You have to realize what obedience means and they demand it and you learn to know it. And you're much wiser the more quickly you learn it and you obey it and you give them absolute obedience.

Alright now what does it mean to sign vows like this. Let me tell you this it means more than you folk will ever know because most people that I know anything about they know very little about obedience.

Oh in a sense yes. But you'll never know what a little nun knows about obedience. I'll assure you that one thing unless you live in the convent. Alright that particular vow when I signed it into my own blood it done something to me.

Because after I've signed those vows do you realize that I've signed away everything. I have my human rights. I have become a mechanical human being now. I can't sit down until they tell me to. I don't dare to get up until they tell me to.

I can't lie down until they tell me to. And neither do I dare to get up. I cannot eat until they tell me to. And what I see. I don't see what I hear. I don't hear what I feel. I don't feel. I've become a mechanical human being.

But you're not aware of that until you have signed all these vows then you realize here I am a mechanical human being. And of course I belong to Rome. Now I'll assure you that right now. Alright we become after these particular vows we become forgotten women of the convent in just a short while you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Loss of Identity and the Patron Saint

Now immediately after I've taken those vows then the Mother Superior is going to give me take away from me my name and give me the name of a patron saint. And she teaches me to believe that whatever happens to me in the convent I can pray to that patron saint and she will intercede and get my prayers through to God.

Because I'm not holy enough to stand in the presence of God. It isn't wonder the dear little nuns can never get close enough to God. We've always been taught that we'll never be holy enough to stand in his presence.

And we always have to go through somebody else in order to get a prayer through to God. And we believe it because we don't know any better. And so now all identification of who Charlotte was is going to be put away.

It'll be taken away from me. And if you would knew me and would come to the convent and call for my family name they'd tell you there isn't such a person as that. I don't exist even though I'm right there because I'm writing under another name.

Now the mother superior is going to cut every bit of hair off of my head and when she cuts it with a scissor she puts a clippers on it and I mean there's nothing left. I just don't have one speck of hair left on my head.

And of course if you could be a nun you would understand the heavy headgear that we have to wear. It would be so cumbersome to have hair and so cumbersome to take care of it. We don't have any ways of taking care of it in the convent.

There are no combs in the convent and so you can imagine how hard it would be for us to take care of a head of hair. It's not necessary that we have a comb after they finish with us. Alright now this is my black veil.

Surveillance, Isolation, and the Plea for Prayer

These are my perpetual vows. We'll call them. I'm there and I'm going to stay there now you know up until this time I received a letter once a month from my family and I wrote a letter out of the convent once a month to my family even though when I'd write that letter I had no doubt they marked out a lot of it because when I would receive a letter from my family there was so much of it blacked out until there was no sense of the letter and oh I'd weep over those black marks.

I was wondering what my mother was trying to say to me. Don't worry you'll never got to know what she wanted to say to you because they have blacked it out and so it would break your hearts many many times.

And you're lonely anyway because you have no friends in the convent. I'll assure you even though there was a hundred and eighty on my particular wing not one of those nuns were my friend and neither was I a friend to them.

Because we are not allowed to be friends in the convent. We are all policemen or detectives watching each other. That's so we'll tell. And the little nun that finds something to tell on the other nuns she stands in good favor with the Mother Superior.

And then the mother teaches that nun to believe when she stands in good favor with the Mother Superior she's standing in good favor with God. And so that little nun of course will want that. And she'll tell a lot of things maybe that are not even true on the other little nuns all right now after all of this has transpired and all of this has happened everything I have is gone.

I've sold my soul for a mess of theological pottage because not only are we destroyed in our bodies many of us in our minds. And many of us if we die in the convent we've lost our soul. And so it's a serious thing.

And I surely covet you prayers for little nuns behind clustered convent doors. They'll never hear this gospel. They'll never know the Christ that you folk know today. They'll never pray to Him as you people pray to Him.

They'll never feel His blessings as you people feel them. And so put them on your heart and pray for them. They surely need much prayer all right now as I walk into that room and all of this is transpiring now bless your hearts.

The Priest's Assault and the Irrevocable Vows

I don't know what's going to be in the next room after this is transpired and I've taken the vows that I will always remain a virgin. I'll never legally marry in this world because I'm the spouse of Christ.

And then after this the Mother Superior leads me out into another room or rather she opens the door and I'm to be sent into that room. And when I walk out in that room I see something I have never seen before.

I see a Roman Catholic priest dressed in a holy habit and he walks over to me and locks his arm in my arm which he had never done in the first part of my convent life. I never had a priest to insult me in any way.

I never had one other to be even unkind to me in the first part of my convent experience. But here he is now. And of course I didn't understand what it was all about and I didn't know what in the world the man really expected of me.

And you know I pulled from him because I felt highly insulted and I pulled from him and I said shame on you. And it made him very angry for a minute. And he said immediately the Mother Superior must have heard my voice because she came out immediately and she said oh and they called me by my church name she said after you've been in the convent a little while you won't feel this way.

The rest of us felt the same way you do. And you know the priest's body is sanctified and therefore it is not a sin for us to give the priest our bodies. In other words as they teach every little nun this as the Holy Ghost placed the germ in Mary's womb and Jesus Christ was born so the priest is the Holy Ghost.