This drama is widely believed to be based on an actual incident, which occurred in a convent in Brighton, New York, just outside the city line of Rochester, a conservative Catholic community.
Pielmeier's plot features a nun who is a young novitiate of French ethnicity, who was molested by her mother as a child, sang in an ethereal voice, was young and ignorant and was impregnated by an unknown entity, which makes for much of the mystery of the drama. In reality, the nun who killed her baby was thirty-six years old and Irish. She was a Montessori teacher, and at that time in New York state, all teachers were required to be certified by New York, which means she needed a bachelor's degree and to complete certain educational courses. In order to obtain permanent certification, a teacher needed a Master's degree in education.
The police found ticket stubs and other information in her convent room indicating that precisely nine months earlier she had traveled out of state to an educational conference. While during the trial, the father of the baby was never named, it was never inferred that the nun was raped by a priest.
This play has seen a revival among Catholic women's groups, who seem to believe it demonstrates important moral and spiritual issues that Catholic women must face. The issues raised by the original incident are just as compelling but less dramatic. Sister Maureen denied she had given birth; when examined by medical staff, she said she couldn't remember being pregnant. She had covered up the pregnancy by wearing the traditional nun's habit. The baby was found dead in her small convent room in a waste basket, asphyxiated.
For her trial, Sister Maureen waived her right to a jury, and Judge Hyman Maas, a Jew, presided. There was a great deal of controversy about whether a Jewish judge would give a Catholic nun a fair trial. The trial was over in ten days, and Maas found the nun innocent of all charges by reason of insanity in March 1977.
The convent where the murder occurred is now used for graduate housing and offices for the Nazareth College of Rochester. The girl's high school, St. Agnes, where many of the nuns taught, is closed.
