Barnacle Time!

…with Barnacle Bill

The Doclopedia #418

The Alphabet, Again: H is for…Holy Order Of The Laughing Mother

When this order of nuns was formed in the wilds of British Columbia in 1885, nobody took much notice. But when these jolly, joking, helpful and charitable sisters starting going out into the community to do their good works, the locals decided that they were fine folks indeed. After awhile, they were doing as much for the nuns as the nuns were doing for them, all the while laughing themselves sick. A century later, somebody would describe the order as practicing “stand up religion”.

Within a decade, the convent had tripled in size and had 30 members, so the Mother Superior decided it was time to branch out. She sent five nuns to Washington state, five to Manitoba and five to Wyoming to set up new convents. Soon, their numbers swelled as they merrily recruited everyone from rancher’s widows to soiled doves to women just looking for a fresh start. As their motto went “If doing the Lord’s work isn’t fun, we don’t know what is”.

You might have noticed that there has been no mention of any priests or Rome noticing or approving any of this. That would be because when Sister Merry Alice founded the order, she did it with her own money and the firm belief that “men, especially men of the cloth, just would not understand or approve, so they can just bugger off”. Sister Merry Alice did not mince words and neither did the nuns she recruited.

Around about 1905, they had convents in every state west of the Rockies and seven Canadian provinces. They were also popular, far more so than the regular Catholic churches in their areas. Much of that came from their humorous antics and charity, but it didn’t hurt that they never once asked for or expected a tithe. Oddly, this not asking resulted in them getting more donations of everything than their male counterparts.

By 1930, the sisters had begun to offer services like family planning and such. At that point, the Pope decided to sic some bishops on them to tell them they had to fall in line. This resulted in some pretty sharp words from the nuns, several ranting editorials from predominantly non-Catholic newspapers and in three cases, bishops being run out of town. All in all it was some pretty bad PR for the Church. Still, the Pope kept after the order until World War II broke out. After that, things got even worse for Rome.

See, by the late 30’s, the order had a few convents in the UK and Europe, including Germany. Seeing which way the Nazi wind was blowing, the nuns started smuggling Jews to safer places, which they did to the tune of about 75,000 people. By the time the Nazis marched into the German convent, all they found was a bunch of practical jokes (mostly buckets of water balanced on doors) and a rather pointed and rude critique of Herr Hitler.

But it wasn’t just the Jewish people who were loving these nuns, no sir. Women, Catholic and otherwise were huge supporters, as were people of color, the poor and everyone of good heart that loved a good joke. By the end of the war, the Vatican had lost the fight when the Order Of The Laughing Mother was named Time magazine’s People of the Year and then won a Nobel Peace Prize. By 1961, there were female priests and by 1987, female bishops. In 2008, the first female Pope was named.

She made her first public appearance wearing Groucho glasses with a fake nose.