By Verghese V Joseph –
Holy Father Pope Francis on Tuesday came out strongly against sexual abuse of nuns by clergy and said he is committed to doing more to fight the problem. During a 45-minute press conference on the flight from Abu Dhabi to Rome, Pope Francis answered questions on the problem of the sexual abuse of nuns by clergy in the Catholic Church, among other issues.
Pope Francis’ attention was drawn to last week “Women Church World,” a monthly magazine distributed alongside the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, published an article on the sexual abuse of nuns by clergy in the Catholic Church. Media had reported on cases of abused nuns in India, Africa, Europe and South America — evidence that the problem is by no means limited to a certain geographic area.
He admitted: “It’s true [that] in the church there have also been some clerics [who abused religious women], and in some cultures more strongly than in others. It’s not something that everyone does, but there have been priests and even bishops who have done what you say.”
“And I think it is still taking place,” the pope said, “because it’s not as though the moment you have become aware of something that it goes away. The thing continues.”
Pope Francis then revealed, “We’ve been working on this for some time. We have suspended some clerics and sent some others away over this.” Moreover, without identifying whom he was referring to, he said, “I don’t know whether the trial on this is over. [We have] dissolved a few female religious orders which were very much tied to this.”
Pope Francis remarked, “I can’t say this doesn’t happen in my house. It’s true.” He asked, “Should something more be done?” and answered with a categorical “yes.”
“Do we have the will [to do more]?” he asked. He responded in the affirmative “yes.” “But it’s a path that we have been [working] on,” Francis added.
Pope response has a direct bearing on India too. Bishop of Jalandhar Franco Mulakkal was arrested on September 21 in Kerala on suspicion of raping a nun in question 13 times between 2014 and 2016.
Pope Francis suspended him the day before his arrest, appointing another bishop in his place. Mulakkal, 53, who headed the diocese of Jalandhar in Punjab, has denied the allegations.
The nun first spoke out in June but police only started formal questioning in September, as fury over the case mounted. Five nuns — in a rare public show of dissent within the Indian Church — and dozens of supporters staged days of protests.
The nuns who spoke out about alleged sexual abuse by a bishop claim the church is attempting to transfer them to other parts of the country, in an apparent attempt to silence them. The nuns recently asked the chief minister of Kerala to intervene on their behalf, after they say church officials ordered them to leave the state.
All the women who received transfer notices had supported a fellow nun who alleged last year that Bishop Franco Mulakkal had raped her 13 times between 2014 and 2016. The incidents purportedly occurred in a guest house of the St. Franco Mission Home in Kerala.
In November, the International Union of Women Religious Superiors condemned such abuse and vowed to help sisters report it and seek justice. Given that in a few weeks the Vatican will hold a meeting on the abuse of minors by clergy, the church needs to be seen doing more on this.
Pope Francis said the Catholic Church owes much to the “courage” of then-Pope Benedict XVI for beginning to tackle the problem, Pope Francis said. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger tried to investigate a congregation where women were allegedly being abused, he said, but the investigation was blocked. After restating that “the problem exists,” especially in new orders and in certain regions of the world, Pope Francis concluded: “Pray that we can go forward. I want to go forward. We are working on it.”
The issue has come to the fore amid the Catholic Church’s overall reckoning with the sexual abuse of minors and the #MeToo-inspired acknowledgement that adults can be victims of abuse whenever there is an imbalance of power in a relationship.
He said Benedict took action against the French congregation “because a certain slavery of women had crept in, slavery to the point of sexual slavery on the part of clergy or the founder,” he said.
“Sometimes the founder takes away, or empties the freedom of the sisters. It can come to this,” Francis said.
Asked if any universal norms might be in the works to tackle the problem — as has been done to handle cases of clergy sexual abuse of minors — Francis implied that the priestly abuse of nuns was still being dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
“There are cases, usually in new congregations and in some regions more than others,” he said. “We’re working on it.”
“Pray that this goes forward,” he said of the Vatican efforts to fight it. “I want it to go forward.”
“If we continue to close our eyes in front of this scandal — made even more serious by the fact that abuse of women includes procreation and so imposed abortions and children not recognized by priests — the condition of oppression of women in the church will never change,” said the article, written by Lucetta Scaraffia.