Can you imagine a community meeting that devolved into a shouting match over a convent being built? You'd have the atheist contingent: "We don't want that opiate-of-the-masses trash near us!" The traumatized Catholic school alums: "When I was a boy in 1963 at St. Mother of Francis Mary Marie, the nuns smacked my hand with a ruler. Let them be homeless!" The old-timers opposed to nuntrification: "These nuns aren't real residents. They'll help the prostitutes and drug addicts and our property values will go up!"
Fortunately (or not, depending on your sense of the absurd), that's not how it went at the Holme Circle Civic Association meeting last week, where convent-related zoning business was discussed. The order of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth want a zoning permit to build a 16-bedroom convent and chapel adjacent to an already existing convent. According to Neast Philly: "Although the discussion generated questions, there was no opposition." We have a question: Are fewer nuns wearing habits these days? If so, is it a comfort issue?
· Busy Holme Circle meeting features candidates, FOPP, sisters from Mount Nazareth convent [Neast Philly]