Their name is a parody of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. Their indulgence, of course, is sexual. Their core value is that Catholic sexual teaching inhibits true freedom, and why should we not crudely and lewdly make fun of it and glorify perpetual sexual excess and mock those who believe in keeping sex in its proper place, in the marriage bed?
One of the founding members called himself Sister Missionary Position. I've found references to Sister Merry Peter, Sister Hellena Handbasket, Sister Sensible Shoes, and Sister Homo Celestial, among others that are too specific in their references to anal sex to mention here. Some members from London (there are now Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence [SPI] around the world) call themselves Sister Vixen, and Sister Dire-Reah, who live in a “convent” called the London House of Common Sluts.
"Sister Cuminja Wrasse and I were talking about the common accusation that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence mock Roman Catholic nuns. ‘What’s your response?’ I asked. ‘I say, “You’re absolutely right,’ Sister Cuminja told me. ‘You’re absolutely right, but ask yourselves why we’re doing it…. The Catholic Church’s stance on contraception, on LGBT rights, on a hundred and one other things, is actually offensive, and offensive to far more people than I’m going to upset by trolling down the streets in a habit.’”—From Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody
From Wikimedia Commons, by David Shankbone, “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence hold a charity tarot card reading at Rapture Cafe on Avenue A in the East Village of New York City.”
"The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence often parody sacred religious rituals in an offensive manner. Examples include their ‘Our Bother’ prayer and their ‘Condom Savior Communion,’ which makes fun of the Catholic Mass while distributing something of which the Church strongly disapproves. Additionally, they sexualize religious figures with their annual ‘Hunky Jesus’ and ‘Foxy Mary’ contests. [They prefer staging these contests on Easter Sundays, when they draw huge crowds.] A slogan at the bottom of the Sisters’ webpage reads, ‘Go forth and sin some more,’ the very opposite of what Christianity endorses."—From Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence: Appropriate or Appropriation?
2007: “Night of the Living Easter: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence celebrate their 28th year of raising money, eyebrows (and a smidge of Hell), all for our community. Including the popular Hunky Jesus competition!” By Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Hunky Jesus Competition
What's the Our Bother Prayer you may ask?
Our Bother, which plagues our pleasures,
Horrid be thy shame.
Your time has come,
You’re on the run,
As we cure you now and forever.
Let us spread affection without infection,
And let us play fair...
They dress in a mockery of traditional habits worn by Catholic religious sisters. Their official website identifies them as a charitable organization because they do volunteer work, but their volunteer work is aimed at promoting societal acceptance of homosexual activities, for example, Pride Marches, where most people who support these parades don’t realize sex acts of every kind are acted out in the streets. They also support homosexuals dealing with AIDS and pass out condoms, which certainly is fitting, because contracting AIDs is a risk for those who indulge in promiscuous sexual behavior, and a huge risk when it's homosexual promiscuity.
“1986
Marching in the Pride parade that year inside the shaft of a 40 foot penis covered in a huge condom, Sister Mysteria was the last nun at the end of the penis with two huge flesh covered beach balls connected to umbilical chords bouncing the entire length of the parade behind her! It won the Sisters another "Most Outrageous" award and stunned silence from spectators!”—From Sistory
The members are mainly homosexual and transgender men (there have been a few, how do I say this, women who identify as women) who actually make a lifetime commitment to this mock religious order, which has stages of postulancy and a novitiate loosely modeled on the process of joining real religious orders. They are sometimes called drag nuns.
Three Nuns in the Portal of a Church, between 1825 and 1894 by Amand Gautier. At the Walters Art Museum
Currently, the SPI wear whiteface and exaggerated clown-like makeup. Their costumes usually include parodies of the elaborate starched white headdresses that used to be worn by traditional religious sisters, and they sometimes include variations on the guimpe, a white neck covering that was also traditionally worn by sisters.
Nowadays, from what I can tell by photos I've googled, their garish costumes seldom resemble traditional habits anymore, and they may also incorporate all kinds of oddities such as small stuffed animals, beads, fishnet stockings, and high heels, and the wearers may be partially nude.
In the beginning, those who called themselves Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence dressed in authentic habits. They started this way.
“A long, long time ago, in 1976, far away in the land of Oz (Iowa), a convent of Roman Catholic nuns lent some retired habits to The Sugar Plum Fairies performing their version of The Sound of Music. One year later, one of our Founders Sister Vicious Power Hungry Bitch (Ken Bunch) moved to San Francisco (1977) and brought those habits to the streets of the Castro district...” From Sistory
The Castro neighborhood became a center for homosexuals in the city in the 1970s. Last time I drove through a few years ago, I saw the city had installed rainbow pedestrian crossing markings to honor the neighborhood’s “culture.”
“Castro Street Crossing in the Rainbow Flag Colour,” photo by Burkhard Mücke
It's funny when you think of it, that the SPI started wearing habits when most of the real religious orders stopped the practice. In 1980, the sometimes-bearded SPI, still wearing authentic habits, picketed the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco because they wouldn’t list a homosexual student group in their new law school catalog. That protest failed. Then. But this is now. On a visit to Jesuit-run Santa Clara University about five years ago, I saw bulletins promoting pride week scroll by on an electric bulletin board in the library. But I digress.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence say they exist to spread light and love. I’m not buying it. Neither should you.
I don’t know where I saw this, but I like it, a lot. “God called. He wants His rainbow back.”
This is a good portrait of the vile group to which a local LA bishop urged us to respond only with “dialogue”— at least until the outcry from the Faithful embarrassed the USCCB into bestirring itself to call for a day of reparation. No protest that might be visible to the world, of course; too confrontational.
Now, prayer is a very good and necessary thing. But it isn’t a substitute for effective action within the natural order. If we don’t oppose evil ourselves in the ways He has made available to us, why should He think we’re serious when we ask for His help?
I get a lot more comments in my email box than I get here. Here is an email discussion resulting from this post. Even though this piece is not about homosexuality or the transgender controversy but a description of the outrageous, lewd, and crude things the SPI does to mock the Catholic Church, I received this from a friend who had a daughter and then a son. The daughter from toddlerhood refused to wear a dress or do anything typically feminine. Now my friend in her holiday letter talks about her "two boys." I have no idea how far the transition has gone with her child formerly known as a girl, except she now has a beard. But anyway, my friend first sent this to me: "Know and understand before printing and making judgement," and she included a blurb from the https://www.thesisters.org/ about their charity work. I replied: "Thanks for reading my post about the SPI. You sent me what they claim to be doing. I simply recorded what they admit they are doing. For example, the man whose religious name refers to coming in your ass (Sister Cuminja Wrasse), said this, “
"Sister Cuminja Wrasse and I were talking about the common accusation that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence mock Roman Catholic nuns. ‘What’s your response?’ I asked. ‘I say, “You’re absolutely right,’"
She replied,
"This is a much longer conversation about how the church treats and encourages it's members to treat the LGBTQ community. So "mocking" means to show the LGBTQ community that unlike their religious family, the sisters support the LGBTQ youth and adults to be who they are and not feel they are slime as the church makes them feel, with the side effects of being kicked out of their homes by religious families and having to live homeless. The Sisters are using an outrageous form to prove the point that people can be individuals in any way they want as long as they don't hurt anyone. They are saying, we support you and offer you food and love to be who you are, and who you were meant to be. Jesus would have accepted them, as many interpretations of the Bibles show that Jesus was gay. [Disgusting slander! ED.]
"More to follow if you are interested, and yet I've had too many of these conversations where both sides are strong about their point and it does not get to any better understanding leading to the problems with our nation, today. I fear for my children."
I wrote back, "The Church does not hate the sinner but the sin. The Church does not encourage its members to treat people with same-sex attractions as slime. But really in all human beings, there is a normal ick factor. I’ve heard young people of any religion wonder what do male homosexuals do, bump their penises together? And what do women do?
"I always think of the story of how the Native American father took his son to the hardware store and pointed out the differences between the nut and the bolt. The nut fits into the bolt, You can’t have two nuts or two bolts working together to build anything.
"M*: Should we be mocking the people we don’t agree with?
"The Church does not make them feel like slime. It’s like the old Irish priest said, “It’s not the hetero- or the homo-, it’s the sex outside of marriage that God has forbidden." For our own good.
"Not everyone can express their sexual feelings. If you are married and are attracted to another person than your spouse, you may suffer but you have to have self-control. Same for single people like me.
"Since the [function of the ]sexual organs are [is] intrinsically linked with reproduction, any use of the organs outside of that is a perversion. Sex belongs in marriage and to deny its procreative aspect is also a perversion, like vomiting after a meal to thwart the nourishing function of food.
"Jesus loves everyone, but He told sinners Go and sin no more. It is a disgusting falsehood made up by a sick mind to say that Jesus Christ, son of God was homosexual and acted on it. Whoever did that interpretation should wash his mind out with soap.
"Are both your children practicing homosexuality? I’m sorry.
"I fear for a world where doctors make a living cutting off the healthy breasts of young women and making Frankenstein penises that don’t work, and constructing silicon breasts for healthy young men and creating Frankenstein gashes with the surgical rearrangement of pieces of their penis, making vaginas that go nowhere, when their patients would benefit more from mental health counseling. Suicide rates after such interventions are higher than when they aren’t performed.
"No I don’t want more. I know the arguments. I used to be on your side of that and other questions. Then I realized how harmful the redefinition of morality really is to everyone. It’s done in the name of compassion, but it’s false compassion."
She seems to have missed the part where I wrote I didn't want more. And wants to continue the conversation. We'll have to see how it goes.