In God--and Karate--These Nuns Trust

More than prayers are wafting over the walls of St. Anne’s convent these days. There’s also the full-throated grunt of physical combat and the thwack of toughened hands smashing brick tiles.

The Roman Catholic convent in this southern Indian city is training nuns to go out and do God’s work with hands of steel.

A 45-day karate class was introduced for neophyte sisters a year ago after several nuns were threatened or harassed doing social work in nearby villages.

The instructor, Shihan Husaini, said he was surprised by how good the nuns are, even in comparison to the soldiers he has trained.

The sisters’ ability to concentrate and their intense self-discipline make them “much better than any normal strong person, even a commando,” he said.

Training is rigorous. The nuns learn to counter knife-wielding assailants and to throw jabs at an attacker’s throat or groin. Lined up prone on the ground, they allow a Jeep to roll over their outstretched hands to toughen them.

“At the end of it, I’m sure no hooligan in a lonely street will be able to harass them,” Husaini said.

Women traveling alone in India often feel vulnerable. But nuns have an additional worry because of suspicions about Christian missionaries harbored by many people in this Hindu-dominated country, where only about 2% of the 920 million people are Christians.

Since the early days of European colonization in the 17th century, Christian missionaries have sought to convert India’s lowest castes, who are condemned to a life of poverty and oppression within the rigid social and religious hierarchy of Hindu culture. Their work was resented as an intrusion and a threat by the upper castes.

One nun was murdered in the southern state of Kerala last year, and another was raped in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Several convents have been targets of break-ins and robberies during which nuns were beaten.

“When I went to a school in a village a few months ago, some people threatened me and I fled from there. Now I feel so bold I am just waiting to go back,” said Sister Arulmozhi, one of 30 women in the current course at St. Anne’s.

The introduction of martial arts in church met with some resistance.

“There were protests from the congregation. They said it was against Christianity,” said Sister Leema, a senior nun who initiated the program.

“But we know the hazards that our sisters face while on their fieldwork. I felt the training in karate taught us self-control, self-discipline and loyalty,” she said.

Sister Leema was among the first group of 50 nuns to take the course, where the oldest nun was 66. The idea came to her while watching girls in the convent school studying the sport as part of their extracurricular activities.

The nuns, who wear mustard-colored saris rather than habits in an effort to blend the local church with local customs, see no contradiction between their physical and spiritual training.

“We will forgive, and we are not violent. But these days, if I am attacked, I cannot turn the other cheek,” Sister Yanmitho said. “I am ready to defend myself, although I will still pray for my attackers.”