'Brides of Christ' T.V. series?

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babesinarms

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I have just searched the forums with no luck as to any discussions on the above series. If it has been discussed, could you point me to the link - that would be great!

Has anybody seen it? It came out in Australia around 1986 (?), I think. If you do know of it, or better still, have seen it, what were your thoughts on it?

Thanks.🙂
 
babesinarms said:
I have just searched the forums with no luck as to any discussions on the above series. If it has been discussed, could you point me to the link - that would be great!

Has anybody seen it? It came out in Australia around 1986 (?), I think. If you do know of it, or better still, have seen it, what were your thoughts on it?

Thanks.🙂
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  1. I saw a few episodes but it didn’t keep my interest and the only thing I can really remember about it was that Anne Tenney (Molly of “A Country Practice”) was in it.
 
I didn’t see it, but here is the plot summary from the Internet Movie DataBase:
Diane, a young woman growing up in Australia in the mid 1960s, walks away from her fiancé to join a convent after being sure she has a calling to the faith. The Catholic Church and its followers are struggling with huge changes. The Pope has died, there is war in Vietnam and mandatory conscription, there is the Vatican controversy on abortion and contraception, and the changing face of the Church as a whole. Told in six parts, Diane faces her own demons and has to finally decide if she can teach what the Church preaches, or if it’s simply impossible for her to reconcile all the contradictions of the faith and uphold her vow of obedience.
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imdb.com/title/tt0101053/

Apparently the music in the series won a few awards.
 
Yeah I watched it. Liked it at the time, but then I hadn’t reverted.

I found what the schoolgirls were going through much more interesting than the nuns themselves. Like the girl whose mother leaves the father and wants to remarry and so on.

Yeah, with the adults there were the fairly standard, fairly typical themes, obviously written by people with stereotyped ideas about religious life:
  • ‘nun has problems with the Church, leaves to go into the outside world, can’t hack it and comes back’
  • ‘priest has problems with the Church, leaves to go into the outside world, becomes bitter against the Church and DOESN’T come back’,
  • ‘large family where mother has problem pregnancy causes nun to have crisis of faith and question the Church’s teaching on contraception’
  • ‘older nun (portrayed, annoyingly and unfairly, as somewhat stupid and unworldly) has problems with changes - can’t hack shorter habits, can’t hack English as opposed to Latin, can’t hack that St Philomena gets taken off the universal calendar (of course she’s Sister Philomena) and goes mad’
 
LilyM said:
Yeah I watched it. Liked it at the time, but then I hadn’t reverted.

I found what the schoolgirls were going through much more interesting than the nuns themselves. Like the girl whose mother leaves the father and wants to remarry and so on.

Yeah, with the adults there were the fairly standard, fairly typical themes, obviously written by people with stereotyped ideas about religious life:
  • ‘nun has problems with the Church, leaves to go into the outside world, can’t hack it and comes back’
  • ‘priest has problems with the Church, leaves to go into the outside world, becomes bitter against the Church and DOESN’T come back’,
  • ‘large family where mother has problem pregnancy causes nun to have crisis of faith and question the Church’s teaching on contraception’
  • ‘older nun (portrayed, annoyingly and unfairly, as somewhat stupid and unworldly) has problems with changes - can’t hack shorter habits, can’t hack English as opposed to Latin, can’t hack that St Philomena gets taken off the universal calendar (of course she’s Sister Philomena) and goes mad’
Click to expand...
Granted the ‘stupid’ part is unfair but some older nuns having great difficulty adjusting to the changes wasn’t a rare thing as any sister who was in the convent in the 60s will tell you.

One sister told us of the many who were prescribed Valium (the housewife’s friend back then) when the changes distressed them so much. They didn’t exactly descend into madness but the distress was great.

The changes did precipitate negative behaviour in some: witness the two biological sisters who were in the same Order where one adjusted quite well and the other couldn’t so she left not only the Order but the Church itself and became a satanist. Extreme and rare reaction, to be sure, but would it be unfair to tell the story?
 
Bummer. I was hoping this was a new show . I thought they did a good job with that series last year or the year before with the young men discerning a call.
 
Glad to see that some know of it…I was beginning to wonder!! I remember it being on TV at the time and my mum, sister and I, were just glued to it each night it was on. Later, when I married, my dh also had seen it and loved it as well. So much so, that we managed to buy the videos from a video shop who were selling them. Later, we managed to find the dvd set on the net and purchased them. We watch the complete series about twice a year. It just brings so many memories back for what school was like in those days (granted with a bit of the drama to highlight the issues of the time). We have the cd of the sound track and the music is so beautiful and haunting. Also wondering if you’ve seen it, how you might compare it with America at the time - were catholic convent schools like that?
I do think some of the issues raised were very real at the time, particularly contraception. What I find really interesting now, is how people in the church had to deal with those changes (especially viewing from an adults perspective, as opposed to being a child back then). I do believe that Vatican II opened a window from all the ‘stuffiness’, but I can’t help but feel in the process, that we’ve lost something along with it.

The reason I’ve posted this, I suppose then, is I’m curious about others points of views; trying to find some kind of balance that can be had in the face of what we have let go and what we all seem to be trying to re-embrace.

What think ye?smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_12_12.gif
 
I saw most of it, they showed it on British TV in the late 90s but it was on in the early hours of the morning. I really enjoyed what I saw of it.

During the 60s there was a British Tv series called Sanctuary about a convent - I wasn’t very old at the time and not a Catholic but for a time I wanted to be a nun!
 
ora_pro_nobis said:
I saw most of it, they showed it on British TV in the late 90s but it was on in the early hours of the morning. I really enjoyed what I saw of it.

During the 60s there was a British Tv series called Sanctuary about a convent -** I wasn’t very old at the time and not a Catholic but for a time I wanted to be a nun!**
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smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_34_2.gifYou must have really had a calling from God back then!!! Have to admit tho, I really think that those nuns carried a certain mystery and awe about them! (few were seriously needing help too!) I remember when they changed from the long traditional tunics to the more modern versions - I was in a state of shock! - they actually had legs (OMG!) - I must have thought they floated on heavenly air! Seriously, I wanted to be a nun as well - I think that one nun in particular knew as much - she kept inviting me into the convent (which was a definite no-go zone for the school kids) and even into her own bedroom to show me how simply they lived. Later in my secondary years, the convent was emptied and used for classrooms - I think that it left me feeling a bit empty at the time too!

Do you remember the name of that TV show you saw (as she rubs her hands in glee with the prospect of yet another convent story!)
smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/15_1_63.gif
 
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