“Where's it written in the good book that it's wrong for nuns to break away from the strict disciplines of their daily lives and get out and experience some of the real beauty of God's creation?” This is the question Warren Miller Entertainment, a longstanding ski and snowboard film company, asks as the nuns from the Mary Immaculate Queen Order take to the slopes. “They’re nuns on the runs,” as it says in a video that’s now gone viral.
The sisters, clad in cozy, bright blue and white habits for skiing, carry their skis from the church after completing their Sunday tasks. Then they traverse the mountain with aplomb. Some wear goggles and one or two even take a spill into the fluffy snow. Their slopes of choice are at Idaho’s Schweitzer Basin, not far from their home near Spokane, Washington. At the Basin, as the video shares, they’re known as “The Flying Nuns of St. Michael’s Convent.”
The video, which now has over 203K likes on Instagram and 598.6K views on TikTok, is prompting a bevy of delighted responses from viewers, like, “He bled so we may shred” and “Ave, Our Lady of Perpetual Powder!” and, “The hills are alive with flying nuns!!!”
If the beauty of nature really is God’s creation, for these nuns skiing must be “a real spiritual experience,” as the video shares. “They have the habit of going skiing to help free their spirit, and enhance their souls,” it continues.
It’s like a page out of the 2008 book Nuns Having Fun, (or its subsequent calendars) which featured photographs of nuns from the 1950s and 1960s bowling or playing in the surf. But why should we be surprised? As one commenter shared, “My aunt is a nun and she used to go roller skating when she was younger. But she'd change into regular sports clothes. And she still rides her bike up to this day in her uniform. We tend to forget that nuns are human individuals. They have interests, they need to keep their bodies healthy through exercise, they like a lot of things non-nuns like. So why not skiing😍”
But the appreciation for the Great Outdoors doesn’t stop here. As more than one commenter also shared, Pope John Paul II was an avid skier, too. Prior to assuming the papacy, as Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, he was once asked if it was “becoming of a cardinal to ski,” and famously quipped, "It's unbecoming for a cardinal to ski badly."
As writer John Howard shared in the 1979 issue of SKI Magazine, the Pope made a pronouncement “just seconds after his inauguration as the 264th successor to St. Peter and Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, that ‘I will ski again when they let me.’” Later on, Howard shared, the pope was known as the “Daredevil of the Tatras,” referencing the European mountain range. Indeed, from the time he assumed the papacy, Pope John Paul II continued to ski for nine years, according to the International Skiing History Association.
To this day there’s an annual skiing competition for priests in Poland inspired by Pope John Paul II, who gave the event his blessing in the 1990s. “The priest is with the people and for the people,” Father Damian Kopek, a co-organizer, said in 2013. “I can give an example of how to have a good time – without alcohol, with honest competition, and also with the communal spirit of the mountain.”
Anderson's photo of his letter written on the pope's behalf.Screenshot from Anderson posting as u/
In addition to Pope Francis, Anderson and his wife also invited Barack Obama to their wedding. 
Rev. Ian A introduces himself on TikTok.
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