The Demands of Rome: Her Own Story of Thirty-One Years as a Sister of Charity in the Order of the Sisters of Charity of Providence of the Roman Catholic Church

In Short

Elizabeth Schoffen’s 1917 memoir The Demands of Rome details her thirty-one years as Sister Lucretia in the Sisters of Charity of Providence. Raised in strict religious isolation, she enters the novitiate believing she will become an educated teacher. Instead, she encounters decades of exhausting labor as a nurse, rigid discipline, and systemic neglect. After questioning internal corruption and seeking redress from church hierarchy without success, she leaves the order. Her narrative endures as a rare, highly specific primary account of early twentieth-century American convent life, institutional labor, and a former nun's struggle for independence.

The Story

Schoffen opens her account with a vivid description of her childhood environment, characterized by absolute religious isolation, fear of damnation, and minimal secular education. Encouraged by Jesuit priests who promise professional training, she enters the Sisters of Charity of Providence in Vancouver, Washington. After completing her novitiate, she takes her final perpetual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in 1883, receiving her official designation as Sister 554.

Her early years as a professed sister involve arduous fundraising trips through remote western camps, where harsh travel conditions and exposure leave her with chronic health issues. Despite her physical ailments, her pleas for medical care from her superiors yield no response. Over time, Schoffen begins surreptitiously reading and studying outside the prescribed religious texts, a habit that fosters an increasing sense of personal independence and intellectual awareness.

In 1899, Schoffen becomes superintendent of the third floor at St. Vincent's Hospital in Portland, Oregon, a position she holds for twelve years. Her work exposes her to stark contrasts within the institution: while patients face shortages, she must supply visiting priests with luxurious food, expensive liquors, and private accommodations. She observes systemic mismanagement, hypocritical behavior among the clergy, and the physical breakdown of aging sisters who receive minimal support once their labor utility ends.

A cross-country journey in 1907 with another nun deepens her disillusionment, confirming her realization that institutional authority prioritizes financial expansion and total obedience over human welfare. When she begins speaking out against local abuses, church leadership transfers her to a remote hospital in Cranbrook, British Columbia, placing her under the direction of her own estranged biological sister, Sister Cassilda.

Realizing that appealing to higher authorities like Archbishop Christie yields only patronizing brush-offs, Schoffen decides to leave the order in 1912. Superiors offer her choice positions or lifelong board if she remains quiet, but she refuses. Reentering secular society with no personal savings, thin clothing, and minimal support, she faces immediate hardship, including hostility from Protestants and difficulty finding work. Determined to expose the system, she retains legal counsel to demand compensation for her decades of unpaid labor, takes to the public lecturing circuit, and publishes her story to advocate for convent reform and legal protections for former religious women.

How It Unfolds

A narrow upbringing Raised in an environment dominated by fear of hellfire and strict religious routine, young Elizabeth is denied secular schooling and worldly social contact. Jesuit priests convince her that entering the convent is the sole path to acquiring an education and becoming a teacher.

Vows and hardship After two years as a novice, she takes perpetual vows in 1883, receives the number 554, and is sent on grueling begging missions across rugged western terrain. Severe weather exposure and rough lodging during these trips permanently damage her health, yet her requests for medical relief go unanswered by superiors.

Hospital labor and awakening Assigned to oversee a floor at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Portland, she manages patient care while catering to the luxurious demands of resident and visiting clergy. Through secret reading and practical observation, she recognizes the sharp divide between the poverty enforced on sisters and the privileges enjoyed by priests.

Protest and exile When she voices complaints about institutional irregularities and the mistreatment of nurses and patients, the hierarchy responds by transferring her to a remote Canadian mission. There, she discovers that her written appeals to the archbishop for redress are ignored entirely.

Severance and struggle In 1912, she rejects offers of comfortable lifelong housing from the order, sheds her religious identity, and enters the secular world virtually penniless. She overcomes extreme poverty, locked doors, and public hostility to launch a legal claim for back wages and begin a public campaign detailing her experiences.

The People

• Elizabeth Schoffen (Sister Lucretia / Sister 554): The author and protagonist, who seeks an education and a life of service but finds herself bound to decades of institutional drudgery. She desires truth, proper medical care, and personal autonomy, ultimately transforming from an obedient subject into a determined public advocate against religious bondage.
• Sister Cassilda: Elizabeth's biological sister, who spends most of her life on isolated Indian missions. Systematically estranged from her family and dulled by decades of extreme hardship, she represents the complete erasing of individuality demanded by the monastic system.
• Archbishop A. Christie: The high ecclesiastical authority in Portland to whom Schoffen appeals for help. He remains indifferent to her complaints of unfair treatment, offering only conventional spiritual platitudes and demanding her absolute submission to her superiors.
• Mother M. Nazareth: A provincial superior who attempts to control Schoffen through sudden reassignments and, later, offers of comfortable retirement to prevent her from exposing the order's internal workings.

In Its Own Voice

"The first demand is the hair of the victim."

Before entering the convent, Schoffen reflects on how the order immediately strips away a woman's personal identity and natural attributes under the guise of religious obedience.

"I tried to talk to her, and she would smile at me, and she tried to talk to me, and I would smile at her."

While on a fundraising trip with another sister, Schoffen describes the tragic isolation caused by years of enforced silence, which leaves both women barely able to converse on normal worldly topics.

"I am out, and I am out to stay."

When church officials attempt to persuade or bribe her into returning to the convent, Schoffen firmly asserts her final break with the order.

What It's Really About

At its core, the narrative examines the totalizing nature of institutional power and the deliberate destruction of personal autonomy. Schoffen argues that under the mantle of divine authority, religious orders operate as economic engines that rely on unpaid, unregulated labor while denying basic human rights to their workforce. The book explores the psychological mechanisms of isolation—how keeping subjects uneducated, silent, and fearful prevents them from recognizing their own exploitation. Ultimately, it is a personal statement on intellectual liberation, documenting how self-education, critical reading, and individual conscience can break through decades of systemic indoctrination.

Why Read It Today

The Demands of Rome offers modern readers an unvarnished, historically rare first-person look into the operational and labor realities of early twentieth-century American Catholic institutions. Rather than relying on romanticized depictions or purely sensationalized gossip, Schoffen provides granular details about daily hospital management, fundraising logistics, internal administrative squabbles, and the physical toll of unremitting labor on women.

Readers interested in labor history, women's history, and institutional critiques will find the text illuminating. The reading experience is direct, plainspoken, and at times emotionally raw. Honest about its period constraints, the book contains intense anti-Catholic rhetoric typical of early 1900s American reform literature, alongside blunt assessments of religious traditions. What remains with the reader, however, is not just the polemic, but the stubborn resilience of an uneducated hospital nurse who taught herself to read, questioned the total authority surrounding her, and walked out into the cold night to claim her independence.