每日外刊 | 0527-想当修女吗?你需要通过这些测试（Evil Nun 2）

背景知识

圣凯瑟琳1347年出生于意大利锡耶纳城的一个染工家庭，她和一个孪生姐妹是家里25个孩子中最小的。从很小的时候起，凯瑟琳就成为了虔诚的天主教徒，她能看到一些不同寻常的视觉景像，她相信那是上帝传输给她的。17岁时她正式成为了一名修女，两年后开始服务病者——她常常选择那些别人不愿意帮助的患有传染恶疾的病人。她还常常帮助穷人，虽然偶尔需要忍耐身体的饥饿以接近天主，她仍然时时处在快乐情绪中。

正文阅读

Want to be a nun? You need to pass these tests

想当修女吗？你需要通过这些测试

Saint Catherine of Siena might have struggled with psychometric tests. The 14th-century saint and mystic had many virtues: she could pray for hours, fast for days and devoted herself to God for years. Some of the statements found on a typical psychometric form, such as “136. I cannot keep my mind on one thing”, would have held no fear for Saint Catherine.

锡耶纳的圣凯瑟琳可能很难通过心理测试。这位14世纪的圣人和神秘主义者有许多美德：她可以祈祷数小时，禁食数天，并将自己献给上帝数年。在典型的心理测量表格中发现的一些陈述，如“第136条：我不能把我的注意力集中在一件事上”，圣凯瑟琳为此毫不担心。

But she might have had more difficulty with others. For she was also tormented by pornographic visions in which she saw “shameless crowds dancing”. She believed she had been married to Christ in a secret ceremony, and that she wore his invisible foreskin on her finger in lieu of a wedding ring. Having to respond to statements such as number 257 (“I have strange and peculiar thoughts”) might have tripped her up.

但她在其他方面可能会有更多的困难。因为她也被色情幻想所折磨，她看到“无耻的人群跳舞”。她相信她是在一个秘密的仪式上与基督结婚的，她在手指上戴着他看不见的包皮，代替了结婚戒指。不得不回应诸如第257条（“我有奇怪的想法”）之类的陈述可能会让她陷入困境。

None of this mattered to Catherine’s career in the medieval era: she was canonised after her death and is revered as a saint to this day. But it would have been more problematic in the modern one, because since 2005 the Catholic church in Britain has been using stringent psychometric tests to screen applicants to religious and to holy orders. Those who feel called by an invisible, intangible God to become a monk, nun or priest now have to commit not only to poverty, chastity and obedience but also to three days’ worth of psychiatric interviews and tests (among them, the double-edged “139. I often hear voices without knowing where they come from.”)

这些对凯瑟琳在中世纪的职业生涯都没有影响：她死后被封为圣徒，直到今天仍被尊为圣人。但如果是在现代，问题就更大了，因为自2005年以来，英国的天主教会一直在使用严格的心理测试来筛选宗教人士和圣职的申请者。那些感觉被无形的上帝召唤成为僧侣、修女或神父的人，现在不仅要承诺贫穷、贞洁和顺从，还要接受为期三天的精神病学访谈和测试（其中包括双刃剑般的第“139条：我经常听到不知道从哪里来的声音。”）

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