Republican Barbara Bellar boasts on her website and on the campaign trail for the 18th District state Senate seat that she was once a Catholic nun.
But when asked if she ever took vows of fidelity and obedience she refused to return telephone calls for days and repeatedly walked away from this columnist during a Republican candidate forum at Moraine Valley Community College on Saturday.
“Dr. Bellar served as a Benedictine nun for five years and remains active in her church,” Bellar claims in a biography on her campaign website, which includes a logo that reads: “Barbara Bellar, State Senate, There’s ‘Nun’ Better.”
But Sister Patricia Crowley, prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Chicago, said Bellar was only a postulant in the order, meaning she was there for a year and was a candidate to join the order.
Crowley explained that the layman’s definition of a nun really doesn’t mean anything to her order.
“You are a postulant, which is the first stage and lasts about a year, and then become a novice, which requires a vote (by the order) to be accepted, Crowley said.
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