In
1836,
anti-Catholic sentiment was in style, aggrivated by the racist, nationalistic
propaganda of the
Know-Nothing party. For example, two years earlier, a mob of
Boston workers burned down a
convent.
So a viciously anti-
Catholic book called the
Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, as Exhibited in a Narrative of Her Sufferings During a Residence of Five Years as a Novice, and Two Years as a Black Nun, in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery at Montreal was enthusiastically greeted in this climate of
bigotry. It purported to tell the story of one "Maria Monk" and her life in a
Canadian convent. Salaciously detailed stories of
kinky sex,
bondage,
torture,
S&M,
rape,
blackmail,
imprisonment, and
murder within the convent walls no doubt helped it sell 300,000 copies.
It was eventually revealed that Monk had never been a
nun. She was a runaway from a Catholic
asylum for delinquent girls. But this revelation did not stop the book from being used as anti-Catholic propaganda as late as
Kennedy’s campaign for
President. It was in print as recently as
1997, and is on sale at
Amazon.com and
Barnes & Noble.
Quickly abandoned by the anti-Catholic
clergy who had so breathlessly promoted her story, the penniless Monk became a
prostitute in
New York City. She was arrested for
pickpocketing one of her customers and was sent to
Blackwell’s Island, where she died.