Ecclesiastical Robots

ECCLESIATICAL ROBOTS written by Ann Ferry, explores the Irish reluctance to face up to the
legacy of widespread institutional abuse has been remarkable in the long crisis in the Catholic
Church. Instead of principled stock taking, defensiveness and even blaming the victims have
been the norm.
The reflexive field of fiction has long been used by the Irish to consider history. ECCLESIASTICAL
ROBOTS is based on factual stories reminding us that the life for the training of postulants
entering the convent to become nuns was frequently a truly traumatic and dehumanizing
process exposing oppression by authority within religious orders often with sad results. The
book explores a dysfunctional and controlling culture where rules were to be obeyed at any
cost and cruelty was imposed for the slightest infraction. The book highlights that life in many
religious entities became robotic and obedience to every schedule and routine summoned
automatic responses.
The public perception of religious institutions is that the people who enter them are good and
caring and compassionate. Though ECCLESIASTICAL ROBOTS is a work of fiction it is based on
reality and supports the premise that very frequently, all is not what it seems.