{"id":107113,"date":"2013-06-22T16:06:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-22T20:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=107113"},"modified":"2013-06-22T16:12:42","modified_gmt":"2013-06-22T20:12:42","slug":"mia-mother-dolores-harts-love-for-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/06\/mia-mother-dolores-harts-love-for-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Media MIA: Mother Dolores Hart’s love for Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It\u2019s the question that echoes between the lines of mainstream news features about the life and work of Mother Dolores Hart, the cloistered nun (yes, she gave Elvis his first on-screen kiss) who walked away from her promising future in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

The question, stated simply, is this: Why did she do it?<\/p>\n

The answer? I\u2019m not really clear on that, but based on reading a number of mainstream press reports on this subject I can say that her decision \u2014 if the mainstream media is to be believed \u2014 had very little to do with her love for Jesus or his church.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s set this question up, via some material from a new Religion News Service piece<\/a> (it\u2019s much better than the norm) about Hart:<\/p>\n

As if to test her resolve in those weeks before she left Hollywood, Universal Studios offered her a role opposite Marlon Brando, a role she turned down shortly after she broke off her engagement to Don Robinson, a kind and handsome businessman who loved her intensely.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven my best friend, who was a priest, Father Doody, said, \u2018You\u2019re crazy. This is absolutely insane to do this,\u2019\u201d Mother Delores Hart remembered in a recent interview, conducted 50 years after she entered the Order of St. Benedict. To try to explain her decision to a world that\u2019s perhaps even more enamored of celebrity than it was a half century ago, Hart, 74, has written \u201cThe Ear of the Heart,\u201d a memoir of her life on screen and behind the convent walls.<\/p>\n

Even though she wasn\u2019t raised Catholic, 9-year-old Dolores decided to convert when she found meaning and comfort in the rituals of her Catholic school. At 24, she quit Hollywood to answer a call she heard from God. \u201cI left the world I knew in order to reenter it on a more profound level,\u201d she writes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, a \u201ccall from God\u201d and that is that.<\/p>\n

Now, the story dedicates all kinds of space to her life before that decision and to her connections to Hollywood. All well and good. <\/p>\n

But, again, what was the nature of the life-changing spiritual tug that led her to spend decades working in an abbey laundry room, or roughing up her hands in a wood shop making coffins? She took the divine call. What did Hart hear on the line?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nothing in particular, apparently.<\/p>\n

I became interested in Hart\u2019s story while writing about the angels and demons<\/a> in the life of one of her famous friends, the Oscar winner Patricia Neal. In an earlier GetReligion post<\/a> \u2014 about an Entertainment Weekly<\/em> story about Hart \u2014 I noted that Elvis was not, in the end, the most important man in her life:<\/p>\n

\n\u2026 (This) is an interesting profile and it spends \u2014 justifiably \u2014 quite a bit of time on the factors that went into Hart\u2019s decision to enter the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Conn. At the top of the list was her decision to walk away from her fiance and her wedding date that loomed in the near future. That\u2019s all well and good. It\u2019s also interesting that Hart has, to some degree, kept in touch with her roots \u2014 especially when a much more famous actress, Patricia Neal, came to the abbey to wrestle with the tragic issues that dominated several decades of her life and work. Was Hart the sister who yelled and cursed right back at Neal<\/a> during one of their counseling sessions? \u2026<\/p>\n

What is striking \u2014 surprise, surprise \u2014 is that her faith and its role in her life-changing decision is given very little attention, until the very end of the article. Even then, it\u2019s hard to write a length piece about a nun without mentioning one particular man in her life, as in Jesus of Nazareth. And what about the Catholic Church? Did love of the church play any role in all of this?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the new RNS piece, there is one new quote \u2014 second hand \u2014 about Hart\u2019s \u201ccall from God.\u201d It\u2019s an intriguing one to say the least. The key voice is that Suzanne Zada, a Holocaust survivor linked to a key Hart movie role decades ago.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI was very upset and actually for a couple of years I was still writing her angry notes about throwing her life away,\u201d said Zada, who still travels from Los Angeles to visit Hart at the abbey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you heard what I hear,\u201d Hart once told Zada, \u201cyou would come, too.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OK, I\u2019ll ask: What did Hart hear that was so life-changing?<\/p>\n

Perhaps Hart is reluctant to talk about her inner spiritual life \u2014 with the press. It is clear that she has been an open and lively guide to many who came to the abbey seeking help and faith.<\/p>\n

Does Hart not want to talk to the press, or it is possible that journalists \u2014 in the end \u2014 are not that interested in her real life? I mean, how do you top kissing Elvis?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the question that echoes between the lines of mainstream news features about the life and work of Mother Dolores Hart, the cloistered nun (yes, she gave Elvis his first on-screen kiss) who walked away from her promising future in Hollywood. The question, stated simply, is this: Why did she do it? The answer? I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,8,18,11,23,12,48],"tags":[1844,611,1845,1607],"class_list":["post-107113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholicism","category-film","category-people","category-pop-culture","category-radio-and-tv","category-religion","category-worship","tag-elvis","tag-hollywood","tag-mother-dolores-hart","tag-nuns"],"yoast_head":"\nMedia MIA: Mother Dolores Hart's love for Jesus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's the question that echoes between the lines of mainstream news features about the life and work of Mother Dolores Hart, the cloistered nun (yes, she\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/06\/mia-mother-dolores-harts-love-for-jesus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Media MIA: Mother Dolores Hart's love for Jesus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It's the question that echoes between the lines of mainstream news features about the life and work of Mother Dolores Hart, the cloistered nun (yes, she\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/06\/mia-mother-dolores-harts-love-for-jesus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"GetReligion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-06-22T20:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-06-22T20:12:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/files\/2013\/06\/god-is-the-bigger-elvis-hdtv-x264-killers-1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/06\/mia-mother-dolores-harts-love-for-jesus\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/06\/mia-mother-dolores-harts-love-for-jesus\/\",\"name\":\"Media MIA: Mother Dolores Hart's love for Jesus\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-06-22T20:06:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-06-22T20:12:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1\"},\"description\":\"It's the question that echoes between the lines of mainstream news features about the life and work of Mother Dolores Hart, the cloistered nun (yes, she\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/06\/mia-mother-dolores-harts-love-for-jesus\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/06\/mia-mother-dolores-harts-love-for-jesus\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/06\/mia-mother-dolores-harts-love-for-jesus\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Media MIA: Mother Dolores Hart’s love for Jesus\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/\",\"name\":\"GetReligion\",\"description\":\""The press . . . just doesn't get religion." - 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