We're heading into autumn in New Zealand and the trees are beginning to shed their leaves. Autumn is a season I love, reminding me of shedding my old self, the child who believed with pure faith, the young woman who was controlled, the nun who practised silence, and the mature woman who still accepted many things in life at face value. Yes, over the years I've needed to shed lots of different skins, and now I feel I can celebrate some of that hard work. I hope you can too.

I've just finished reading Dan Brown's latest book, Origin, where I found myself reading about Edmond Kirsch's mother, Paloma, a Palmarian nun.

Now, the extraordinary thing is that in the entire history of the Palmarian Church, there is only one nun called Paloma, and that nun was me, Maria Hall, a New Zealander.

Brown's Paloma has a chequered past, not unlike my own, but the big difference is that I didn't commit suicide in the convent but escaped instead. It's a pity that Dan's researcher, who has obviously read my memoir, REPARATION - a spiritual journey, didn't contact me to discuss the Palmarian Church. It would have been great to talk face to face.

Anyway, I really enjoyed 'Origin' and I'm glad that Dan has brought the Palmarian Church to the attention of the world because, like many secretive cults, it's completely hidden from the world, buried in the foothills of the Andalusian Plains outside of Seville, hence there's little analysis, scrutiny or appraisal of its doctrine, rites and practices. 

Palmarian believers have little contact with the real world. Young people grow up in a very closed and sheltered environment, often with devastating effects that strangle their personal development.

And, if they choose to leave the Palmarian Church, they have been  banished from their homes and separated from their families with huge emotional and psychological trauma, although, of late, some of those rules have been relaxed.

As history records, in the middle of the twentieth century and onwards, many Catholics around the world were eager for the Church to change and modernise, while a few rejected change and clung to tradition. Much to everyone’s surprise though, a group of children from the little-known village of Palmar de Troya, told their parents that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them and given them some heavenly messages. Locals believed, crowds appeared, and a certain young man called Clemente Dominquez Y Gomez joined the gathering, proclaiming that he had visions too. A religious order of Carmelites was established in 1975 and, on the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, Clemente announced that God had crowned him pope, and the Palmarian Church was born. Unfortunately, Dan Brown doesn't get that course of events right or the reasoning behind it but this obviously doesn't matter to him. 

Dan Brown has never entered the Palmarian cathedral in Seville, Spain, never attended a Palmarian Mass, and never seen the Palmarian pope because his descriptions are mostly incorrect (only so much can be gleaned from Google Maps and YouTube videos).

I sincerely hope no one is converted to the Palmarian Church after reading 'ORIGIN' because that Church offers nothing of worth to anyone. It seeks to isolate its followers from family and friends, and requires total obedience to a set of petty rules which change like the wind. Marriages are built on allegiance to the Palmarian Church – not on love. Interracial marriages are forbidden. Unhappiness in marriage is discounted, as are unresolvable differences, because separation and divorce are forbidden, as is pre-marital sex and the use of contraception. God is in charge of everything in the Palmarian world, including conception, and large families are wanted and needed to increase the Palmarian population. Despite historic claims by Palmarian seminarians of sexual abuse within the Church, it remains staunch in denying any issues with celibacy among its clergy. The Palmarian Church discourages free thinking among its followers. It insists that salvation cannot be found outside of its walls and sacraments and, of course, it can offer no proof that any of its teachings are accurate and true.

Thanks for reading up to here. My next newsletter will be coming to you sometime in the Southern Hemisphere winter.