But this is about far more than a vogue for convent homesteading and head coverings. The nuns who have captured the public imagination are rebels: passionate and risqué. They are not just politely “into God”: they are besotted with the mystifying, creative spark of the Universe.

So they do wild things: between divine trips, Hildegard invented a new language; Sr Rita (82), of the Austrian runaways, posts videos of her boxing workouts on Facebook; in Convent Wisdom, Sr Mary of Jesus of Ágreda bilocates. “It’s thrilling to learn how powerful, purposeful women managed the unreasonable demands of male authority figures, made ends meet and lived on their own (and God’s) terms,” wrote Emma Beddington in her Guardian review of the book.

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