Other than a brief flirtation with the idea when I was in third grade, a flirtation evidenced mostly by my choice of a Halloween costume that year, I never really wanted to be a nun.
American martyr, dying while defending The Church against invading Commies, yes; but enter the convent: NO.
Instead, by the time I was in high school, I was doing the opposite of what we were all advised. I wasn't praying for a vocation, I was praying against one. I didn't want to shave my head, wear a funny outfit, leave my family, and have absolutely no control over what I was doing, where I was going, or who I was with on a regular basis. Plus - other than in The Bells of St. Mary's, a movie in which Sister Benedict (Ingrid Bergman) and Father O'Malley (Bing Crosby) were antiseptic sweethearts, more or less, you didn't get to have a boyfriend. Not that I had a boyfriend in high school, but I wouldn't have minded having one. (And, by the way, Sister Benedict had to die of TB for the sin of being kind of crushy with Father O.)
But Catholic high schools were feeders, contributing girls to the vocation funnel, and a number of girls from my high school "went in."
One of the school year "highlights" - it was a kinder, gentler time and we were less demanding of what constituted entertainment , plus we liked anything that got us out of class for a while - was the assembly when the girl or girls from our school who'd entered the convent the year before came back on what was more or less a recruitment drive.
They'd be introduce to a standing ovation, then tell us all about how much fun they had - basketball games, sundae parties - and what a swell place the novitiate was.
Afterwards, the nuns would talk it up and drop hints about who they thought had a vocation - all underscored by the dire warning that if you had a vocation and you deliberately ignored it, you were going to regret it for the rest of your inevitably miserable life.
Who among us might have a vocation?
"It's the ones you'd least expect," they'd tell us.
It was never, in fact, the ones you'd least expect.
The ones you'd least expect had bleached streaks in their hair; wore eye makeup; smoked in uniform at Leno's after school (a high crime and misdemeanor); drank Tango Screwdrivers; and went parking at Bancroft Tower with their boyfriends. They drove Mustangs, wore Pappagallo shoes that matched their Villager outfits, and carried Bermuda bags. They didn't have to work during the summer - they went to the Cape and got tans. They didn't have to work during the school year much, either.
Who cared if they got C's on their report cards?
No one, that's who.
Who needed A's? They had money and boyfriends.
Trust me: these girls never went in.
But it wasn't necessarily the rosary-swinging, pious prig, goody-two-shoes, either.
The girls who entered the convent from my high school class were both all-round, nice, normal, attractive-enough (i.e., they looked like everybody else who wasn't one of the school knock-outs) girls. I wasn't really good friends with either of them, but I could just as well have been moderately friendly with them if they'd gone to my grammar school or sat next to me the first day of school.
Maria was out within a year. Peggy, as far as I know, is still "in". (I get fund raising appeals from the order of nuns who staffed the schools I attended, and I've seen Peggy in the newsletters.)
So I was very interested in an article from the Boston Globe my sister Trish (that's my sister-sister, not a nun-sister) sent me on a beauty contest an Italian priest was organizing for nuns.
Prompted by the suggestions of some nuns he works with, and hoping to drum up interest in vocations, Father Antonio Rungi was setting up to run a "Miss Sister 2008" contest, starting this month, hoping to:
...give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.
Rungi was going to have nuns fill in a profile about their life, work, and vocation - and to send in a photo (veil optional).
"We are not going to parade nuns in bathing suits," Rungi said by telephone from his town of Mondragone. "But being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun. External beauty is gift from God, and we mustn't hide it."
Once he got the candidates online, Rungi was then planning on having folks vote on their favorite.
Alas, as reported by the BBC, Father Rungi's plans didn't really have a prayer of a chance.
"My superiors were not happy. The local bishop was not happy, but they did not understand me either," Father Rungi told Reuters news agency...
"It was interpreted as more of a physical thing," he said. "Now, no one is saying that nuns can't be beautiful, but I was thinking about something more complete."
Given that Italy is home to the Calendario Romano, which for the last few years has published a calendar featuring an assortment of cutie-pie, beefcake, and charm-boy priests, one would think there'd be ample room for a beauty contest for nuns.
But I guess it's just another way in which women are treated in certain quarter as second class citizens.
I first saw the priest calendar when my sister Kath (that's my sister-sister, not a nun-sister) brought one back from a trip to Rome. Not speaking any Italian, 
we assumed that the calendar was a joke. But given the universal language of soulful and angelic looking young men, who appeared to represent the majority of the priests-of-the month in the calendar that Kath bought, we assumed that the calendar was a gay joke.
T'ain't necessarily so, the Italian-speaking, gay friend we passed it on to, told us. It could still be a joke, but as far as he could tell, the priest calendar was the real thing - someone's idea that a good way to promote the priesthood was to publish a calendar of handsome priests.
So, while there don't appear to be any opportunities for beauty-queen-in-the-making nuns anytime soon, model priests who are interested in a sideline as a pinup can apply to get their handsome mug on the 2010 Calendar.
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