Why couldn't the nuns go to Maria's wedding? (Sound of Music)

Cafe Society
1

Watching The Sound of Music for the umpteenth time triggered this questions (which is not about the movie, per se: )

Maria walks to the cathedral with all her nun friends, into an alcove behind a fence She then goes through the fence and walks down the aisle; the nuns stay behind and literally watch through a locked fence. It very much looks like there’s a line that they can’t cross.
I spent 8 years in parochial school so I’m nun-adjacent, and I don’t recall any church prohibitions on nuns attending a wedding (and obviously there’s no rules against them entering a church).

Anybody know what’s going on?

2

They’re cloistered.

3

The were part of a cloistered order that didn’t interact with the public. Beyond that gate was a public area, thus they did not enter.

ETA: I’m going to move this to Cafe Society and add “Sound of Music” to the title.

4

I did as well, so I always thought it was a great idea to keep nuns behind a fence. Preferably electrified.

5

But they were allowed to go out into the street far enough to sabotage the Nazi cars.

Or were those cars parked in the cloistered area, since they were searching the convent?

6

Maybe they said 12 Hail Mary’s and did 6 acts of service after this digression as a show on penance? But that wasn’t important to the film.

Also Nazis, may have been exempt from normal rules putting down fiends.

Also did they interact with the public or just a car?

I can’t remember the scene at all sadly.

7

Cloistered nuns can interact with government officials when necessary. That would include voting, and insurrections :smiley:

8

And such religious rules often have “Except when necessary” exclusions. During the pandemic, in Canada, we had a pair of Sikh brothers, who were doctors. They were faced with the problem of a religion that requires them to not shave their beards, and the medical requirement to be clean shaven so that their masks would work properly. Faced with the unavoidable choice between observance and practicality, they shaved their beards.

I suspect that sabotaging a Nazi is a bit more important than attending a wedding, so they accepted this minor violation of their rules.

9

All we see is the Nazis unable to start their cars, followed by a scene of the nuns saying “Reverend Mother, I have sinned” and displaying two distributor caps. So they knew & confessed that they had sinned.

And we’re all hoping that little jerk Rolfe got killed at Stalingrad, right?

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11

I can add my vote to your excellent suggestion! I realized in 1st grade that they hated us and so we hated them,….8 years of guerilla warfare ensued

12

When my friend Betsey was a kid, her mom always turned off the TV after the wedding scene. She was well into her teens before she learned that there was quite a bit more movie after that!

13

I bet Rolfe didn’t last long enough to get to Stalingrad.

14
15

How cloistered nuns know about disabling of cars by removal of distributor caps is a question best left unasked for the sake of movie enjoyment.

16

Likewise what happened to the nuns when the pissed-off Nazis came back into the monastery.

17

These women had lives in the outside world before taking their vows, so it’s not at all implausible that at least a few learned that much about cars prior to entering the convent.

18

Cloistered nuns necessarily do most of the maintenance on the convent grounds themselves. I always imagined she was the one who maintained their garden tractor and shopping vehicles. They don’t have butlers, you know. . .

19

From my experience with nuns, there is nothing notable about that scene.

20

Especially in that era, I’d expect that nuns would have much more knowledge of the practical workings of the world than the typical woman. Nuns have never been very accepting of being told what they ought and ought not to do.