The Cannibal's Wife: A Memoir

When Sister Yvonne Maes became a missionary, her dream of transcending herself - truly giving her life to a higher purpose - became a reality. Sister Yvonne was at last attaining her goal of promoting education and social justice in South Africa. Selfless, deeply caring, and above all obedient, she remained true to her calling and to her vows.
At age forty-six, however, her life was turned upside down. Suffering from professional burnout, she attended a Church-sponsored retreat where she was seduced by her assigned spiritual mentor, himself a Catholic priest.
In The Cannibal's Wife Yvonne Maes takes us inside the world of a nun struggling with an overwhelming predicament to explore the emotional and spiritual geography of an embattled religious life, to gain an understanding of "celibate" sexuality and its predators, to uncover the roots of her vulnerability to abuse, and to share her emergence into a powerful new consciousness in both theological and personal terms. Victimized again during the perils of prosecuting her case within canon law, where priests - and mothers superior - are intent on maintaining their power and position, Sister Yvonne is eventually forced to seek solace and understanding outside the Church.

Yvonne Maes taught at St. Mary's Academy in Manitoba.