Madrid — A Spanish nun with a social conscience would ordinarily be expected to help underprivileged children in her community, or perhaps do missionary work in the developing world.
But Teresa Forcades from the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat, near Barcelona, is no ordinary sister. A Harvard-educated doctor in public health, she has clashed with medical orthodoxy with her outspoken views on vaccines. She is a devoted member of the Catholic Church, but has written critically about the institution as misogynistic and uncaring.
Now Ms Forcades is taking a step further and is moving into front-line politics. Her new Holy Grail is to unite Catalonia’s left-wing parties to bring about not only an independent state, but one that is as free of the ravages of global capitalism as it is of interference from Madrid.
Sister Teresa has left the mountain-top monastery which has been her home for the past two decades to become a radical candidate for the next Catalan election, scheduled for September and which regional premier Artur Mas has billed as a de facto referendum on independence.
Why does Catalonia want independence from Spain?
In mid-June Ms Forcades was selected as the number one candidate on the ballot list of Procés Constituent a Catalunya, a grouping which she founded two years ago. It calls for the founding of an independent Catalan state with a nationalised banking system and energy sector, no armed forces, no immigration laws, payment for parents who stay at home and on-demand abortion.
Even before the election campaign has begun in earnest, Ms Forcades already enjoys huge popularity. Her Twitter account has nearly 35,000 followers and her YouTube videos, in which she explains the ills of “big pharma” and global capitalism in the patient and soothing tones for which she has become known, have been viewed by hundreds of thousands.
Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, in perfect English, Ms Forcades admits that being a nun does has some disadvantages in the Spanish political arena.
“I have read negative comments in the media along the lines of ‘How can you have a nun running the country?’ and I know that there are some people who will be deterred from voting for me because I am a nun,” she said.
“A lot of people are still very anticlerical and with the history we had with Franco in power, it is understandable that there are many progressive people who have always seen the Church as the enemy.”
The fact that she is consistently critical of the Church from within may have helped boost her credibility as a politician aiming to bring about radical reform, she adds.
Born into an atheist, middle-class Barcelona family in 1966, Ms Forcades first visited Sant Benet monastery in 1995 only because she was looking for somewhere quiet to study for her US medical exams.
It was a life-changing experience. Two years later, after getting an MA in divinity at Harvard, she entered the monastery more permanently, having taken her holy vows. She did not think she would ever leave.
Even now she has not given up her vows, and is awaiting permission from the local bishop for her exclaustration, a period spent outside the convent or monastery which can last up to three years.
Assuming that is granted, she will then take to the political arena to press her view that independence is the only opportunity for Catalan society to escape from what, in the language of the left, she describes as “the stifling orthodoxies of today’s neoliberal society”.
“We perceived a social majority in Catalan society that wanted to break with the neoliberal system,” she said. “It is true that not all of them want independence from Spain, but they might eventually understand that this is the best way to bring about the change they desire.
“It sounds great to say you want to just change the system but it is not easy, and across Spain you have very diverse political realities.”
She faces resistance not just from a government in Madrid which has said that there is no legal basis for a referendum in Catalonia, but also from the fact that many supporters of independence are deeply conservative, starting with breakaway premier Artur Mas.
“It is true that the nationalists are more conservative but they are the ones who have brought people to the streets,” she said. “The desire for social justice on the part of some might help to create a majority for independence, while there are more conservative supporters of independence who might join our process”.
But is Ms Forcades, who has appeared in public recently without her trademark black-and-white wimple, sure she is not going to be tempted by the prospect of power and influence and stay down from the mountain?
“Life is open-ended,” she said. “I don’t have the ability to predict the future. But I feel attached to the monastery – I feel I belong there. I am very happy that the sisters agreed to let me do this for three years. We are ready in this country for a major change and I am ready to play a part in it.”
(This appeared in The Telegraph on 05 Jul 2015)