A Coincidence?

I was huffing and puffing one day, excited to show David a book I've picked up at school; a book I have read few years ago. It was Agnes of God. And David surprised me with a story - the book was based on a real event that happened... tada!... in front of his house!


He said what is now a school of theology (and where Fr. Fulton Sheen's personal library is housed) was a convent. I did a wiki research which proved to be quite disappointing. It showed that the event happened in Brighton. David's house is in Pittsford. However, David said it just a location system indicated by the zip code. Whatever.

The wiki entry says:

"This drama is widely believed to be based on an actual incident, which occurred in a convent in Brighton, New York, just outside the city line of Rochester.

However, Sister Maureen, the nun who killed her baby, was thirty-six years old, Irish, and well-educated. She was a Montessori teacher in New York state, which required teachers to obtain bachelor's degrees and to be certified. In order to obtain permanent certification, teachers also required a Master's degree in education.

Sister Maureen denied she had given birth; when examined by medical staff, she said she couldn't remember being pregnant. She had covered up the pregnancy by wearing the traditional nun's habit. The baby was found dead in her small convent room in a waste basket, asphyxiated.

The police found ticket stubs and other information in the nun's convent room indicating that precisely nine months earlier she had traveled out of state to an educational conference. While during the trial, the father of the baby was never named, it was never suggested that the nun had been raped by a priest.

At her trial, Sister Maureen waived her right to a jury, and Judge Hyman Maas, a Jew, presided. There was a great deal of controversy about whether a Jewish judge would give a Catholic nun a fair trial. The trial was over in ten days, and Maas found the nun innocent of all charges by reason of insanity in March 1977.

The convent where the murder occurred is adjacent to the still-functioning suburban parish and school. The girl's high school, St. Agnes, where some of the nuns taught, is closed."