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43-699: Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk was published in January 1836. In it, Monk claimed that nuns of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph of the Montreal convent of the Hôtel-Dieu , whom she called "the Black Nuns", were forced to have sex with the priests in the seminary next door. The priests supposedly entered the convent through a secret tunnel. If the sexual union produced a baby, it

86-677: A Catholic religious congregation founded in 1636 at La Flèche , France, by the Venerable Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière and the Venerable Marie de la Ferre. Jérôme le Royer was born in La Flèche, France, on March 18, 1597. He pursued his studies at the Jesuit College there, and when his father died in 1619, Jérôme succeeded him as tax collector. He also inherited the small estate “La Dauversière”, whence comes

129-556: A derivative of a tract, is equivalent in Hebrew literature to a chapter of the Christian Bible. The distribution of tracts pre-dates the development of the printing press , with the term being applied by scholars to religious and political works at least as early as the 7th century. They were used to disseminate the teachings of John Wycliffe in the 14th century. As a political tool, they proliferated throughout Europe during

172-541: A hospital, where care would be given by sisters of the new order. He sponsored Paul de Chomedey and Jeanne Mance , a lay woman, to go to Ville-Marie with French colonists to evangelize the Natives and establish a hospital ( Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal ) to care for the poor. Mance founded it in Montréal in 1642. In 1659, three Sisters from Laval, Judith Moreau de Brésoles, Catherine Mace and Marie Maillet were chosen for

215-538: A mob invaded and then burned down the convent in an effort to free her. In 1835, Rebecca Reed published an anti-Catholic , gothic novel , a highly-colored account of her six months as an Episcopalian charity pupil at the Ursuline convent school in Charlestown, Massachusetts . Reed herself died of tuberculosis shortly after the publication of her book; her disease was widely believed to have been caused by

258-930: A school for black children. In 1953, the American and Canadian communities became one congregation; the French congregations then joined in 1965. The Motherhouse is located in Montreal. In 2017, the Hospitallers sold the monastery at the Hôtel-Dieu to the City of Montreal and subsequently relocated. In the United States, the sisters are active in Winooski, Vermont ; Chicago, Illinois; Antigo, Wisconsin; and Palos Park, Illinois. Tract (literature) A tract

301-570: A wider audience. According to the American Protestant Vindicator , by July 1836 the book had sold 26,000 copies. Other publishers later issued books that supported Monk’s claims or were close imitators, or else they published tracts that refuted the tale. Historian Richard Hofstadter called it, in his 1964 essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics , "[p]robably the most widely read contemporary book in

344-416: Is a literary work and, in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the 21st century, a tract referred to a brief pamphlet used for religious and political purposes. Tracts are often either left for someone to find or handed out. However, there have been times in history when the term implied tome-like works. A tractate ,

387-591: Is an end of Maria Monk; she died in the almshouse , still cooking as was her wont. Blackwell's Island, New York , on Tuesday". Awful Disclosures remained in print for years afterwards and was occasionally revived. There appear to have been two Australian editions (1920, 1940). The last recorded unsupplemented facsimile edition was published in 1977. Posthumous editions of Maria Monk were published in 1837 (New York: Howe and Bates), 1920 (Melbourne: Wyatt and Watt), 1940? (Brisbane: Clarion Propaganda Series),1962 (Hamden: Archon), and were often reprints or facsimiles of

430-403: Is known that Monk lived in an asylum in her early years and that one of the nuns mentioned in her story was actually a fellow patient in the asylum. There is some evidence that Monk had suffered a brain injury as a child. One possible result of this alleged injury could be that Monk might have been manipulated, and might not be able to distinguish between fact and fantasy. Another possible result of

473-490: The Jesus movement . One of the most widely distributed, and one that continues to be handed out en masse, is " The Four Spiritual Laws " authored by Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ and first published in 1965. "This Was Your Life" was the first of many tracts written by Jack Chick . Later Chick tracts followed the pattern of vivid cartoon images. In the 1980s and 1990s, Last Days Ministries reprinted articles in

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516-490: The Last Days Newsletter by Keith Green and other contemporary and historic writers including David Wilkerson , Leonard Ravenhill , Winkie Pratney , Charles Finney , John Wesley , and William Booth . More recently Living Waters Publications prints tracts such as "The Atheist Test" or "Are You Good Enough to Go to Heaven?", as well as tracts which feature attention-getting illusions or gags. These include

559-618: The Oxford Movement for reform within the Church of England that the movement became known as "Tractarianism", after the publication in the 1830s and 1840s of a series of religious essays collectively called Tracts for the Times . These tracts were written by a group of Anglican clergy including John Henry Newman , John Keble , Henry Edward Manning , and Edward Pusey . They were theological discourses that sought to establish

602-501: The " Million Dollar Bill ", which caused a legal controversy in June 2006. Most Christian tract ministries operate as non-profit "faith" organizations, some to the degree that they do not require a fee for their tracts. One of the most productive among these is Fellowship Tract League, which has printed over 4 billion Gospel tracts since 1978, available in over 70 different languages, and have been distributed into more than 200 countries. In

645-744: The 17th century. In the 18th century, they featured prominently in the political unrest leading up to the American Revolution , and in the English response to the French Revolution , a "pamphlet war" known as the Revolution Controversy . A well-known example of a far-reaching tract from this era is Common Sense by Thomas Paine . Tracts were used for political purposes throughout the 20th century. They were used to spread Nazi propaganda in central Europe during

688-601: The 17th century. They have been printed as persuasive religious material since the invention of Gutenberg 's printing press , being widely utilized by Martin Luther during the start of the Lutheran movement of Christianity . As religious literature, tracts were used throughout the turbulence of the Protestant Reformation and the various upheavals of the 17th century. They came to such prominence again in

731-850: The 2010s, Saint Paul Street Evangelization, a Roman Catholic apostolate focused on evangelism , has published tracts for distribution especially while engaged in street ministry . Tracts are widely used in Methodist tradition, being published by apostolates such as the Pilgrim Tract Society. "Tracting" is a colloquialism commonly used by missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to refer to door-to-door proselytizing, whether or not actual tracts are dispensed. Brochure-like tracts, also known as pamphlets , advocating political positions have also been used throughout history as well. They were used throughout Europe in

774-554: The Magdalen Asylum, rather than at the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. The Magdalen asylum building was a very small wooden building, quite different from the described nunnery of the book Monk wrote. Many details of the story seem to have originated with Monk's legal guardian, William K. Hoyte, an anti-Catholic activist, and his associates. The writers later sued each other for a share of the considerable profits, while Monk

817-698: The RHSJ has set up a number of hospitals, schools and other facilities during the period of increased immigration and growth beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. In September 1845, the RHSJ order established the Hotel Dieu Hospital (Kingston, Ontario) . That facility was in operation when Kingston suffered an epidemic of typhus in 1847. In addition to ill and dying patients, Hotel Dieu cared for 100 orphaned children who had lost their parents. The disease had accompanied poor Irish immigrants fleeing famine in their homeland. No one yet understood how

860-570: The Sisters of Charity, as Monk stated at the beginning of her text; the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph , whose habits were black but who were not typically called "Black Nuns", operated the Hotel-Dieu , where Monk claimed that she entered and suffered, and it was not founded by "Sister Bourgeoise [ sic ]"; and it was the Sisters of Charity who were commonly known as the Grey Nuns . It

903-587: The South, where whites had regained control of state legislatures and in many areas used intimidation and force to keep blacks away from the polls. The blacks who moved to Canada can be considered precursors of the Great Migration out of the South in the first half of the 20th century, by which some six million blacks moved to the North, Midwest, and West Coast cities. The RHSJ founded a hospital for Windsor, and

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946-555: The U.S.) and followed the 1834 Ursuline Convent Riots near Boston . These were triggered by an incident in which one of the nuns left the convent but was persuaded to return on the following day by her superior, Mother Mary St. George, and by the Bishop of Boston, the Most Reverend Benedict Fenwick . This incident immediately gave rise to the claim that the woman was being held in the convent against her will;

989-495: The United States before Uncle Tom's Cabin ." Monk’s book caused a public outcry. Protestants in Montreal , Quebec, demanded an investigation, and the local bishop organized one. The inquiry found no evidence to support the claims, though many American Protestants refused to accept the conclusion and accused the bishop of dishonesty. Colonel William Leete Stone Sr. , a Protestant newspaper editor from New York City, undertook his own investigation. In October 1836, his team entered

1032-496: The United States in 1894. In 1897 the RHSJ founded a Hotel Dieu at Cornwall, Ontario . They constructed facilities, including a school, nurses training school, and nursing facility. In the twentieth century, the order reorganized to integrate its people from Canada, the United States and France. The generalate is located in Canada, its chief area of activity. Le Royer founded centers at Ville-Marie, now Montreal , for education and

1075-776: The United States, the American Tract Society has continuously published literature of this type since 1825; around Allhallowtide , around 3 million alone are purchased annually to be distributed by Christians. By the late 19th century, Bible Students associated with Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society were distributing tens of millions of tracts each year; by the start of World War I, they had distributed hundreds of millions of tracts in dozens of languages worldwide. The Watch Tower Society continues to publish hundreds of millions of religious tracts in more than 400 languages, which are distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses . As evangelistic tools, tracts became prominent in

1118-437: The alleged injury could be that Monk had little understanding of the devastating result of her claims. It has been suggested, though not proven, that Monk was manipulated into playing a role for profit by her publisher or her ghost writers. Scholars consider the book a hoax . Monk’s book was published in an American atmosphere of anti-Catholic hostility (partly fueled by early 19th-century Irish and German Catholic immigration to

1161-484: The austerities to which she had been subjected at the convent. Reed’s book became a bestseller, and Monk or her handlers might have hoped to cash in on the evident market for anti-Catholic horror fiction . Monk’s claims might have been modeled on the gothic novels that were popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries, a literary genre that had already been used to stoke anti-Catholic sentiments in such works as Denis Diderot 's La Religieuse . Monk’s story epitomizes

1204-589: The continuity between the Church of England and the patristic period of church history . They had a vast influence on Anglo-Catholicism . They were learned works and varied in length from four to over 400 pages. An important center for the spreading of tracts was the London-based Religious Tract Society . Tracts were used both within England, affecting the conversion of pioneer missionary to China, Hudson Taylor , as well as in

1247-494: The convent and found that the descriptions in the book did not match the convent's interior. During their first visit, the investigators were denied entry to the basement and the nuns’ personal quarters. There was much dispute regarding the existence of a tunnel leading to the nuns' residence. There were disputes regarding "renovations to the nuns residence and if the "tunnel " had been filled in or not. Stone returned to New York, interviewed Monk and concluded that she had never been in

1290-472: The convent. On a later visit, he was given total access to all quarters. Stone’s team found no evidence that Monk had ever lived in the convent. Monk disappeared from the public view. It was later discovered that she had spent the seven-year period in question in the Magdalen Asylum for Wayward Girls . One critic points out that a nun character in her book, Jane Ray, was actually residing with Monk at

1333-825: The crosscultural missions that movements such as Taylor founded: the China Inland Mission . Charles Spurgeon wrote many tracts, and in addition to these evangelical writings, his "Penny Sermons" were printed weekly and distributed widely by the millions and used in a similar way, and they still are today. In America, the American Tract Society distributed vast quantities of tracts in multitudes of languages to newly arriving immigrants at Ellis Island and sought to assist them in their struggles in their new country. The publishing of tracts for religious purposes has continued unabated, with many Christian tract ministries, in particular, existing today. In

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1376-621: The death of her aunt, De la Ferre visited the sick poor in the small Maison Dieu in La Flèche, where she met M. le Royer. Le Royer founded the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph (RHSJ) with Marie de la Ferre in 1636. The RHSJ are distinct from the Sisters of Saint Joseph founded in 1650 at Le Puy-en-Velay, France. In May 1636, Marie de la Ferre and Anne Foureau formed a community at the Hotel-Dieu with three servants of

1419-701: The disease spread, and poor sanitation practices compounded the epidemic. The congregation spread to other towns, and other houses opened orphanages and boarding schools. In 1819, a community of Hospitallers Canonesses of Saint Augustin in Ernée merged with the Hospitallers of St. Joseph. In the nineteenth century, the RHSJ also established an Hotel Dieu and convent school in New Brunswick at each of three towns: Tracadie (1868), Chatham (1869), and Saint-Basile (1873). The sisters helped establish medical and nursing care in these communities, as well as schools for

1462-651: The education of children. Responding to recent immigration from the United States, the RHSJ established the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in 1888 at Windsor, Ontario . Dean T. Wagner, pastor of St. Alphonsus Church in Windsor, invited the RHSJ to the city. He was particularly concerned that black immigrants from the United States' South were not being adequately served by other community institutions. For instance, black children were denied entry to white schools. At that time, they were fleeing oppressive conditions in

1505-522: The first community of Hospitallers of St. Joseph in Montreal in New France to work at the hospital. That year the RHSJ received letters patent from King Louis XIV to take over the hospital and its operations. Each convent was autonomous and responsible solely to the local bishop. Marie Morin , who took her vows with the order in 1671, was the first Canadian-born nun. The hospital was separately incorporated in 1967. Since its establishment in Canada,

1548-495: The genre-defining elements of a young, innocent woman being trapped in a remote, old, gloomily picturesque estate, where she learns dark secrets and escapes after harrowing adventures. Monk claimed that she had lived in the convent for seven years, became pregnant, and fled because she did not want her baby destroyed. She told her story to a Protestant minister, Rev. John Jay Slocum, in New York, who encouraged her to repeat it to

1591-401: The original. In 1975, a microform format was made available from New Haven, Connecticut. ISBN references are available for the following editions: The book has been translated into some languages, for instance, Dutch: and Ukrainian: Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph The Religious Hospitallers of Saint Joseph ( RHSJ ; French : Religieuses Hospitalières de Saint-Joseph ) are

1634-622: The poor already on site. Thus began the Congregation of the Daughters Hospitallers of St. Joseph. The first constitutions of the congregation were approved and on January 22, 1644, Marie de la Ferre and her eleven companions made simple vows for one year in the Congregation of the Daughters of St. Joseph. They elected De la Ferre as superior of the newly founded community. In the spring of 1652, an epidemic broke out in

1677-415: The title attached to his name. He married Jeanne de Bauge, who bore him five children. Le Royer collaborated in the administration of the old Maison Dieu (House of God), where the sick poor received care. The three women who worked there lived on alms obtained in the city. Le Royer wondered what to do to improve their situation. First, he rebuilt the dilapidated hospital at La Flèche. Marie de la Ferre

1720-640: The town of Moulins, where the Sisters had come to serve the sick. The infection claimed many people and even the Sisters fell ill. As the epidemic began to regress, Sister Marie de la Ferre, already exhausted, died on July 28, 1652. The RHSJ continued to expand to new sites, including in North America in both Canada and the United States. They founded hospitals at Kingston, Ontario in 1845; Athabaskaville, near Quebec City , in 1881; Campbellton, New Brunswick , in 1889; and in Burlington, Vermont in

1763-571: Was baptized and then strangled and dumped into a lime pit in the basement. Uncooperative nuns disappeared. Monk's story contains various inconsistencies. In her account, she stated that there were three convents in Montreal: "1st. The Congregational Nunnery. 2d. The Black Nunnery, or Convent of Sister Bourgeoise. 3d The Grey Nunnery." The Congregational Nuns were the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal , founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys , not

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1806-619: Was born around 1589 in the small village of Roiffé. Around 1601, her mother died. When her father remarried, the girl went to live with her aunt, Catherine de Goubitz, at her manor in Ruigné, near La Flèche. Her aunt wanted her to make a brilliant match; but Marie decided to consecrate her life to the Lord. Several experiences of religious life having failed, Marie devoted herself to her aunt’s service, as well as those wounded by life. The people, witnesses of her charity, called her “The Holy Woman”. After

1849-401: Was left destitute. Monk traveled to Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, with a lover whom historians often identify as Graham Monk. She penned a sequel, Further Disclosures of Maria Monk . When she gave birth to another child, Oliver (a brother to William), out of wedlock in 1838, most of her supporters abandoned her. The Boston Pilot published this obituary for her on September 8, 1849: "There

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