Andréa Richard was born in Acadie, New Brunswick, in 1934. In 1950, at the age of 16, she joined the Little Sisters of the Poor, in 1962 became a cloistered Carmelite, and became a left again in 1972. Ahead of her times, she creates a house to teach a positive spirituality; counter to the negative spirituality centered on the sacrifice then exercised in the convents.

Since 1980, she has been a militant for secularism. From 1972 to 2015, she lectures mainly in Quebec, New Brunswick, and occasionally in the United States and France. She has published six books including her autobiography “Woman after the cloister, Beyond religion” and “Essence of life”, at Editions Septentrion. She has been married for the last twenty years. She participates in televised debates and often publishes articles in magazines and newspapers in Quebec. She presented two memoirs to the National Assembly for a charter of secularism.

Sources: Huffpost / Research P. Richard