The Singing Nun – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singing_Nun

A coworker and I were amusing ourselves trilling the Singing Nun’s Dominique, which led to a debate on her nationality. Her biography proved far more interesting than you’d think: A birth control advocate, tax evader, lesbian and suicide victim. Pope Ratzinger is rolling around in his grave*

Deckers gradually faded into obscurity, possibly because of her own disdain for fame: her second album, released in 1967, was titled I Am Not a Star. Though she was deeply religious, she was also increasingly critical of the Roman Catholic Church’s conservativism and eventually became an advocate for birth control. In 1967, she recorded a song entitled “Glory Be to God for the Golden Pill” – a paean to contraception – under the name Luc Dominique.

Her musical career ended, Deckers opened a school for autistic children in Belgium with her companion of ten years, Annie Pescher. In the early 1980s the Belgian government claimed that she owed back taxes; she countered that the money was given to the convent and therefore exempt from taxes. In 1985 she and Pescher both committed suicide. They are buried together.

*not a typo – have you seen him?

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