We were taught that for every drop of blood we shed in the convent we would have 100 days less to spend in purgatory. When nuns worked in the kitchen or other places underground they often wounded themselves to spill blood for this purpose. We had it hammered into our thinking that, as we spilled our own blood, as we whipped and lacerated our bodies, tortured and tormented them, we were gaining indulgence for ourselves and others from purgatory. Remember there is no hope in a convent; nothing to look forward to except continuous pain, exhaustion, starvation and finally death. (Leviticus 19:28).

To those who have been taught the truth of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and know of the marvelous grace of God, it may seem incredible that anyone could be so deluded and ignorant. I remind you that if you had been taught noting else all your life and, if as an impressionable child you had been spirited away to be brainwashed and finally imprisoned in a convent, you would not know any better either.

It took ten terrible years in the convent before I finally realized the awful truth that I had been duped. I was finally convinced that the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Joseph, St. Peter, and all the other saints were simply unfeeling metal, wood or plaster statues. It was a shock when I knew they could do nothing to answer all the fervent prayers poured out to them by faithful and deluded people all over the world.

It is surprising how tenacious my faith in all those false idols was. How long it took to really realize the bitter truth about them and the deception in which we had been snared. Bitterly, I came to believe that, if there was a God, He certainly either was dead or cared nothing about humanity. Oh, the hours I and others have spent in earnest, sobbing prayer at the feet of these dumb statues. (Jeremiah 10:19).

One regular monthly event we always dreaded was the visit of the father confessor to the convent. Each time it was a different priest but they were all basically the same. I hated going and always attempted to get in the back row. I lived in a convent so long that I would never trust any priest. All of the ones I met were rotten and vile. The ordeal of confession sometimes took all day. One by one the nuns had to file in to the room where the priest was waiting. Never did I see a priest in the convent who had not been drinking.

The room was bare except for the inevitable statue of the Virgin Mary. The priest perched in a straight-backed chair and the nun must come in and kneel before him. If she got out without being defiled and forced into some unspeakable depravity she was fortunate. No one ever interrupted the priest and the woman, no matter what transpired. One after another the nuns would enter and leave the room.

At other times it was not unusual for the Mother Superior to usher in a drunken priest who would pick out a nun and take her to a cell with him for more liquor and sex. The Mother Superior was a hard and carnal woman who had borne numbers of illegitimate children of priests and usually she drank with the visitors. The priest was well fed, healthy, and strong and lived a relatively easy life; therefore a poor, weakened nun was no match for him, to fight him off. Because she was helpless, he did whatever he pleased and violated her any way he chose. There is no one to defend or help her and none to even care about her being forced into harlotry. Because Mother Superior locked the cell there was no way to escape.

Often I have nursed these little nuns after they had been brutalized and shamefully abused. Only the priest's imagination limited the kind of indignities he could inflict on his victim. I saw and experienced all kinds of sickening evidences of the wildest kinds of lust being exercised in the convents. The body of the nun often looked as if it were something to be thrown out to the hogs, covered with dozens of bruises and other marks. The people who say I exaggerate are either the priests, trying to squelch the truth, or those who have never been inside the convents. Because I was there, I know the truth, which is monstrous and shocking!

Can you imagine the terrible position of the nun confronted by the priest? If she displeased or refused him, he would complain to the Mother Superior. Putting their two evil minds together they would come up with things to do to that nun which normal minds would never imagine. In a day or two after she resisted the priest, Mother Superior would call her aside to do penance again. There was no choice and with sinking heart she would be led down into the dungeons where the awful reprisal dreamed up by the priest and Mother Superior would be executed.

Some mornings when we were preparing to go to work Mother Superior would call out ten or fifteen of us. We were trembling and apprehensive, never knowing what was coming. We were never allowed to question; only obey, like mindless machines. Would we be punished, go to the penance chambers or what? Then she abruptly would give the order for us to line up and remove all our clothes. With sinking hearts we did as we were told. We knew from experience what was coming next.

Half starved and marked with many scars, with shaved heads, we must have been a sorry sight. Because there are absolutely no mirrors allowed in a convent, I had no idea what I looked like for all the years of my incarceration. When I would catch scant, forbidden glances at others with their gaunt, drawn faces, sunken eyes, teeth falling out, and skeletal starved bodies, I could hardly imagine that I too looked like this.

On one occasion after we were stripped, three drunken, leering Catholic priests lurched in and eyes the nude girls lustfully and each chose a partner to go to a cell with him. Remember, these are cloistered convents and the priest is free to do anything he pleases behind the cloak of rotten religion. This same wicked whoremonger will return to his flock to say mass and hear confessions of people he dupes into believing they can be absolved from their sins. Full of fornication, perversion and vice, he acts as their god!

Can you imagine what all these vile and hurtful abuses did to me? I had no idea that anyone could harbor such hatred, resentment and bitterness inside. In my mind, over and over I would plot and wish for the death of the Mother Superior and other tormentors. How I would relish these delicious thoughts of vengeance and hatred! The convent did this to me. I certainly was not like this when I entered.

After all the nuns had been broken to the will of the priests, they would become very angry if we resisted anything they wanted to do. Often we were slapped in the mouth by an irritated drunken priest. I had my own front teeth knocked loose from being punched in the face. Often we were thrown on the floor and kicked in the stomach. Being pregnant was no protection, for the priest knew that baby was going to be murdered anyway when it was born. Many babies are born in the convents because of the evil corruption of this foul system, cloaked in religious garments. No wonder Babylon is slated for complete destruction. She is unspeakably vile!

I saw scores of babies born in the convents. Most were abnormal and deformed and seldom was one normal. With my hands I have delivered many, many of them, therefore I know. With my eyes I have seen the horror of it all and the world must be told of what goes on in those chambers of horrors.

Many have said I exaggerate and that these things are not so, but I have yet to be hauled into court to refute the charges. They would have to open the cloisters and this they dare not do. After being snared in this rotten system for twenty-two years, I know whereof I speak.

Normal young expectant mothers eagerly anticipate the arrival of their precious baby. Everything is ready, nursery, crib, clothing, and everyone is happy with her. By contrast, a little nun in the convent dreads the moment when she gives birth. The child is the product of a shameful, illicit union with a drunken priest which was forced on her. She knows from bitter experience that the baby will only be permitted to live four or five hours at the very most. It will never be cleaned or wrapped in a warm blanket for Mother Superior will put her hand over its mouth and pinch its nostrils to snuff out its life.

This is why there are lime pits in all the convents. Babies' bodies are tossed in these holes to be destroyed. Pray for the government to force the convents to open their doors to release the prisoners and let the whole world see what horrors are hidden behind those doors of cruel religious hypocrisy.

If this happens, I assure you that even the Catholic people will agree to the closing of the convents as they did in Mexico in 1934. They have no idea what is transpiring there either, or they would never expose their daughters to such barbarous debauchery and torture.

The convents in old Mexico have been turned into government museums which you can tour for a modest fee. You should go and see with your own eyes and touch with your hands the things of which I speak. Go down into the dungeons, through the tunnels and torture chambers and see all the fiendish devices, demonically conceived, to inflict suffering on the bodies of helpless nuns. See for yourself the cells in which nuns were locked each night and examine the beds, and the prayer boards.

This should give you a burden to pray for hundreds of precious little girls who have been deceived and enticed into entering these ungodly prisons for a life of suffering and utter despair by the Roman Catholic system. Remember I had a mother and father who loved me dearly. When they consented for me to enter the convent they had no idea that I was going to be subjected to such degradation. They were assured that this was the highest calling, the finest expression of their faith and love to God, to give a daughter to such service.

Sealed up in the convents until death, we would never be able to leave and let people outside know what actually takes place inside. With all communications cut off, we were beyond the protection of the law or loved ones and friends. There is no hopeless despair and black depression quite as smothering as that which seizes you when the realization of all this begins to sink in. To know that there is just no escape possible is maddening for there is no end or relief in sight.

Roman Catholics loudly proclaim that anyone can go into any open or closed order convent. There is an outside chapel and what is called the speak room. You are not even admitted there without an escort. If you were taking in food for a specific nun, typically you would walk up the front of the room and press a bell. This would activate a gate containing three shelves to swing open to receive your gifts for the nun inside. When the bell is tapped, you may be sure that Mother Superior is seated just behind the heavy black veil draped over the big iron gate guarding the inner part of the convent.

You will not be allowed to go any further but may speak to the Mother Superior through the veil. If you asked permission to speak to a specific nun, you might be permitted to converse with her, but only through the veil. If questions are asked as to her happiness, health, food, etc., the nun always answers affirmatively. After all, Mother Superior is sitting there, monitoring every word.

If she were to complain or reveal any of the unpleasant details of life inside, there would be swift and harsh action to correct her as soon as the visitor left. There are good reasons for them to refuse to let relatives see the nuns in person. After a time on convent fare and treatment, the eyes are sunken in the head and the body so wasted away, pale and unhealthy that seeing all this would bring an indignant outcry.

Many were the nights I was extremely exhausted and badly in need of sleep, but ravenous hunger kept me from rest. Going to breakfast meant only a scrap of bread and a cup of black coffee which did not even take the edge off of that everpresent hunger. To those who have always had enough to eat it will be difficult to understand the plight of those who go to bed hungry every night. This is tragic in impoverished, backward nations. It becomes even more evil when you realize that what I am describing is deliberately planned and induced with cunning and devilish cruelty.

Remember that there is not a night or day when those little nuns imprisoned in the cloistered convents around the world do not go to bed hungry. They are sick, wounded, hurt, homesick, heartsick, discouraged and filled with despair. While we look to the Lord Jesus Christ for hope, these poor women have no hope. Release into a lost eternity is the best they can look for.

Occasionally I meet Roman Catholics who vow they have been inside the cloisters and that what I report is not true. You must remember that Catholics are quite free to lie to protect the church and need not even confess this in confessional. It is permissible, just as it is alright to steal up to $40.00 before theft has to be confessed. (Exodus 20:15,16).

My fury toward the succession of Mother Superiors was unchecked. Each time she singled me out for penance or some real or imaginary infraction of convent rules she would sadistically inflict some diabolical and vicious suffering designed to destroy my body and mind. My mind was so filled with schemes of violence and retaliation I lived for the bitter day when I would be able to repay some of the misery I had endured.

All of this awful violence and hatred in me was created by the endless stream of cruelties, deprivations, harassments and unbelievable sufferings heaped on me by my captors. I often fantasized what a joy it would be to kill one of the brutal, lecherous priests who regularly violated us.

In my twenty-two years in the convent, I saw three Mother Superiors die. Because I was a nurse, one day two nuns came to fetch me to tend Mother Superior who was critically ill. A Roman Catholic doctor from the outside had been called in to examine her. He gave me strict instructions concerning some powerful prescription medication he left for her. All of the hatred I held for this ungodly woman, her cruelty and the wicked system she represented boiled up in me. I would have my revenge, and this woman would die. I would see to that!

The day was long as I waited for my chance. The nuns were locked in their cells and the lights went out at 9:30. Time drug on until finally the midnight call to prayer was finished with the lights out for the night. I picked up a number of the tablets and dissolved them in water, a deliberate, massive overdose.

Eagerly, I roused the half-conscious woman and painstakingly forced her to gulp down every drop of the lethal potion. As I eased her back on the pillows I gloated. Soon she would die a horrible death and my vengeance on her would be sweet indeed. I checked her pulse, which was escalating rapidly, as was her respiration. In a short time she began to moan and toss and finally went into violent convulsions. I smiled evilly, for years of abuse had changed me into a bitter, heartless monster, bent on murder.

Suddenly I awoke to the realization of what I had done. With a shock I knew that I would probably be held accountable for her death. There was no way to imagine what they might do to me because of it. Frantically I grabbed a stomach pump and worked furiously to save her. I began massaging her with cold water. At long last her respiration and blood pressure dropped to normal levels and she drifted off into a deep sleep. I could relax again and reflect on my own narrow escape.

I knew that in a part of the deep tunnel system under the convent, there was a place where I had often heard horrible screams. They came from behind a heavy locked door. Mother Superior had repeatedly warned us not to go there. This was a rather pointless admonition since none of us had any keys, however my curiosity about the place was overwhelming.

With my patient finally out of danger and the convent asleep, I remembered. Mother Superior's keys were in her desk, so I grabbed them and raced downstairs. Two stories underground, by the flickering candlelight, I found the forbidden door which I had wondered about. I fumbled nervously with the big ring of keys and finally found the right one. The huge door swung quietly open, revealing a hall lined with nineteen tiny cells. All had barred windows in the doors.

I gasped in horror as I peered inside the cells to see white, ravaged and drawn faces of little nuns with whom I had eaten, prayed and worked. Each had disappeared suddenly and without any explanation. One in particular I recognized and asked her how long she had been there and other questions. Her dull, lifeless eyes were glazed with awful terror, but she would say nothing at all. Paralyzing fear rules the convent and these prisoners did not know where the Mother Superior might be hiding. None would speak lest worse things come upon them. I went from one to the other but always the response was the same, frightened silence.

Toward the end of the hall, several cells emitted a sickening stench and I became violently ill and nauseated when I peeped inside. All of the captives here had long chains wrapped around their waists, which prevented them from being able to sit or lie down. They were slumped in the chains, reeking with their own urine and body wastes, for they had been condemned to a slow death, with little water and no food. Some were already dead and the awful smell of death was there.

Their "crimes" consisted of persistent infractions of convent rules or they were unfortunate enough to have had a nervous or mental breakdown because of the pressure of the cloistered life. This was the way such matters were handled, a hidden garbage dump for the wreckage of the convent.

Violently ill, my head swimming and mind reeling, I staggered from the chamber of horrors and relocked the door. Hurriedly I went back upstairs to my charge, who was still sleeping peacefully. I was relieved to find that her blood pressure and respiration were still normal. She slept late into the next day and I remained with her for three more days.

Mother Superior felt so much better that I was rewarded with a six week assignment to kitchen duty. This was a rare privilege for it was on the first floor. Kitchen walls were lined with peep holes and there was no way to know when some nun or priest was peeping through them. With this constant surveillance, the slightest infraction of the rules, especially stealing food, could be discovered and dealt with quickly and harshly. This contributed to the overall sense of being in a hostile prison at all times. Still I was glad to be there.