Interrupted Lives: Catholic Sisters Under European Communism

Mary Rose Bacani Valenti

December 3, 2009
nunRecently, I was able to screen the documentary Interrupted Lives: Catholic Sisters Under European Communism. Part of the Vision & Values series created by the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission, of which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is a member, this documentary was truly eye-opening. I never thought of what these Sisters could have been going through at the end of the Second World War. Under Stalin’s communist regime, religious sisters in Eastern and Central Europe found themselves driven out of their convents overnight, forced to do farm and factory labour, imprisoned and beaten, some facing exile for at least 40 years. One Sister told the story of how she was beaten again and again and she couldn’t believe that all this was real.
One Sister says, “Our lives, our youth, our promises, all interrupted. Sometimes I want to ask, why us? But I stop myself. This is the cross God asked us to carry. What we remember now is not the pain but the glory, the glory of saying yes.”
Filmed on location in Ukraine, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, and the United States, the one-hour documentary “Interrupted Lives: Catholic Sisters Under European Communism” is an unforgettable and moving story of endurance and faith. Watch out for it on Sunday, December 6th at 1:30 pm ET, Tuesday, December 8th at 8:30 pm ET, or Wednesday December 9th at 12:30pm ET on Salt + Light Television.