Wen | Mu Qi
From World Chinese Network
WeChat: worldchineseweekly
On February 5 of this year, Pope Francis of the Catholic Church returned to Rome after his trip to the United Arab Emirates, where he was interviewed by reporters on a plane and openly admitted that priests and priests had sexually assaulted nuns and even forced them to have abortions and become sex slaves! This is the first time that the Catholic Pope has publicly acknowledged that nuns are being sexually assaulted.
1. Italy, India... Nuns everywhere experience sexual violence
In 2000, a nun dressed in a full robe and clutching rosary rosary of roses confided to The Associated Press about her experience of sexual harassment at a university in Bologna, Italy.
She confessed to a priest, but the other person suddenly stood up and pasted her. Although the nun was petite but not fragile, she was very surprised and stood up to push the priest back into the chair with all her might. But a year later, she was sexually harassed by another priest. "It opened a huge wound inside me and I could only pretend it never happened," she said. ”
In fact, as early as 1994, the late nun Maura O'Donohue submitted a multi-country investigation report to the Vatican, which pointed out that 29 nuns had been sexually assaulted in an ordinary church alone, and that in Africa, African clergy would be infected with HIV because they feared that they would be infected with HIV from prostitutes or other women, and turned their targets to nuns, because nuns were "safer sexual partners".
By 1998, another nun named Marie McDonald had told Vatican officials and clergy leaders that rape of nuns by African clerics was already common, and that once nuns became pregnant, they would ask them to have an abortion.
Even more surprising is that the problem of sexual assault also exists in the Nuns' Continuing Institute in Rome, because these nuns often seek "help" from seminary students or priests when writing their papers, and providing sexual services is the way they "pass the examination".
As early as last July, the Associated Press exposed incidents of sexual assault and harassment of Catholic nuns in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
2. Only "silence"
Since so many nuns have been sexually assaulted, why has no one resisted, in fact, they do not want to, but do not dare.
When an American nun recently gave a report in Pakistan on how to prevent sexual assault, she advised not to report it to a bishop or priest first, as they could also be sexual abusers or cover-ups.
For many of the victims, they were often reluctant to disclose that they had been sexually assaulted for fear that their testimony would not be believed by church members. There were once several nuns living in small churches in Chile who decided to publicize on television that they had been abused by priests and other nuns, but their superiors ignored them.
Choosing silence in the face of harassment is the helplessness of most nuns. Last year, an Indian nun accused a bishop of having sexually assaulted her 13 times on different occasions in 4 years! She repeatedly reported the situation to the church, but the results were always unsuccessful.
At first, the incident was exposed by the media, and the Indian police began to intervene in the investigation. However, the bishops involved denied the sexual assault case. The bishop said it was the nun's revenge against him.
The nun was punished by the bishop in November 2016 for violating church rules. The bishop also countered the nun's misconduct, because he was dissatisfied after being punished by the bishop, and began to fabricate the story. The Indian police said that due to the difficulty of collecting evidence, the case was finally closed. And when bishops facing trial were released on bail, many priests celebrated.
In India, there are about 18 million Catholics, but compared to the 1.3 billion Hindu population, Catholics are only a minority, and scandals can damage the image of the church, so few humiliated nuns dare to go public, and even if they do, the problem will not be solved, and even retaliation will be taken!
3. Exposing infidelity within the Church, the priest was suspended
One escaped nun once lamented: "In the eyes of Jesus we are all children of God, but in real life, some nuns cannot be treated equally!" ”
In fact, the reason why nuns have been sexually assaulted for a long time is that the root cause of the problem lies in the Catholic Church, which has long regarded women as "inferior".
"Wind Media" once reported that the Catholic Church has been dominated by men for many years, and gender inequality has existed for a long time, which is also the main cause of sexual abuse and sexual assault.
For a long time, the high-ranking bishops and priests regarded the nuns as humble slaves, who were forced to cook and clean for them with little chance of sitting at the table, and who often worked for long periods of time without the guarantee of a contract, but for a measly small or even no reward.
Last year, a Vatican official told The Associated Press that the Holy See is now focused on protecting children and adolescents, yet that vulnerable adults should still receive equal protection.
"We should encourage female clergy to react when they are harassed, and we should encourage clergy to take these cases seriously and ensure that guilty clergy are punished," he said. ”
Despite Vatican officials' claims that female clerics should be protected, Di Masul, executive director of the Religious University of Rome, pointed out the most serious problems faced by nuns who have been sexually assaulted and harassed: Those complaints are difficult to take seriously by the top, because the priest can always blame the nuns, saying: "This is what she wants." ”
What is even more frightening is that the closed system within the church is also very dark, and those priests who expose the ill-intentions within the church will be punished instead!
In 2013, Musala priests in Uganda issued an open letter to the local Catholic Church, stating that local priests had had sex with nuns but were suspended from their posts until May, when Musala publicly apologized and was allowed to return to his post.
Ugandan Archbishop Odama also said that accusations that cannot be substantiated by individual clergy cannot be used to criticize the church as a whole, and that "individual cases" should be treated as "individual cases", and they do not represent the church as a whole! Such a statement is simply a rogue, because in the past, the Catholic Church has been exposed many times for sexual abuse of children, which is nothing new.
Fortunately, more and more nuns, encouraged by the international "Me Too" movement, have begun to expose the evil deeds of priests and bishops.
Last year, the International Association of Nuns, representing more than 500,000 nuns, publicly denounced the condontion of "religious culture of silence and secrecy" and called on nuns to report it.
All kinds of public opinion pressure was placed in front of the Church, and it was not until today that the Catholic Pope Francis confessed: "These are true... There are indeed priests and even bishops who do this... I think it's happening all the time, because it's not something you can stop when you find out; we've been dealing with it for a while, and we've removed a few of the clergy involved, but we should have done more. ”
Although the Pope made such a promise, but even so, we still have to put a question mark, the cloak of religion is really gorgeous, but how many lice are underneath, only those "insiders" know, and how many nuns and religious women believers in the world have been sexually assaulted and sexually harassed, which is still a riddle that cannot be broken.
This article is authorized to publish, By Xiaohuamei, From World Chinese Network, WeChat: worldchineseweekly, welcome to the circle of friends, without permission may not be reproduced, INSIGHT Vision sincerely recommend
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