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| Nuns are silhouetted in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on April 1. Some nuns are now finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement and the growing recognition that adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. - AP |
After decades of silence, handful of nuns are now finding their voices as they come forward to call on the Catholic Church over the sexuaI abuse and harassment of priests.
An examination found by AP shows that cases of abused nuns
have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, demonstrating that the
problem is global and pervasive, thanks to the sisters’ second-class status in
the Church and their ingrained subservience to the men who run it.
Buoyed by the #MeToo movement, some nuns are now coming
forward letting the Church know that even adults can be victims of sexual abuse
when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship.
Some of the nuns are going public to denounce the Church's inaction on the issues, even after major studies on the problem in Africa were
reported to the Vatican in 1990s.
These issues of the Church flared in the wake of scandals
over children abuse, and recently to adults, including the revelation that one
prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick, reportedly sexuaIIy abused and harased
his seminarians.
McCarrick, was the former Archbishop of Washington, he was
removed from the ministry in June after a review board found “credible”
evidence that he had assaulted the teen while working as a priest in New York
in the early 1970s.*
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| Cardinal Theodore McCarrick / AFP Photo |
The Vatican also confirmed McCarrick’s resignation as a member of
the College of Cardinals.
“Yesterday evening the Holy Father received the letter in
which Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington (U.S.A.),
presented his resignation as a member of the College of Cardinals,” the Vatican
said in a statement on Saturday.
“Pope Francis accepted his resignation from the cardinalate
and has ordered his suspension from the exercise of any public ministry,
together with the obligation to remain in a house yet to be indicated to him,
for a life of prayer and penance until the accusations made against him are
examined in a regular canonical trial.” It added.
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| Pope Francis / photo from Catholic News Agency |
Although he has officially retired, McCarrick, 88, has been one
of the most prominent American cardinals active, he continued to travel abroad
regularly, participating on human rights issues.*
Meanwhile, a nun in India recently filed a formal police
complaint accusing a bishop of rape-something that would have been unthinkable
even a year ago.
Furthermore, cases in Africa have reportedly come up periodically
but not taken seriously.
As also stated in an article published by The Observer, in 2013,
a well-known priest in Uganda, Fr Anthony Musaala wrote a letter to his
superiors that mentioned “priests romantically involved with religious sisters”
— for which he was promptly suspended from the church until he apologized in
May. And the sister in Europe spoke to the AP to help bring the issue to light.
“I am so sad that it took so long for this to come into the
open, because there were reports long ago,” Karlijn Demasure, one of the
church’s leading experts on clergy sexual abuse and abuse of power, told the AP
in an interview.
“I hope that now actions will be taken to take care of the
victims and put an end to this kind of abuse.” Demasure added.
A nun who no longer goes to confession regularly, after an Italian
priest forced himself on her while she was at her most vulnerable times; recounting
her sins to him in a university classroom nearly 20 years ago.
At that time, the sister only told her superior and her spiritual
director, silenced by the Catholic Church’s culture of secrecy, her vows of
obedience and her own fear, repulsion and shame.
“It opened a great wound inside of me,” she told the
Associated Press. “I pretended it didn’t happen.”
And after a long time of silence, the nun is one of a
handful that participates worldwide in denouncing the issues inside the Catholic
Church.
