After Years Of Abuse By Priests, #NunsToo Are Speaking Out

March 18, 20197:22 AM ET

Heard on Morning Edition

SYLVIA POGGIOLI

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"The Vatican is a world of men; some truly are men of God," says Sister Catherine Aubin, a French Dominican nun who teaches at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome. "Others have been ruined by power. The key to these secrets and silence is ... abuse of power. They climb up a career staircase toward evil."

Sylvia Poggioli/NPR

In February, Pope Francis acknowledged a longstanding dirty secret in the Roman Catholic Church — the sexual abuse of nuns by priests.

It's an issue that had long been kept under wraps, but in the #MeToo era, a #NunsToo movement has emerged, and now sexual abuse is more widely discussed.

The Vatican's wall of silence was first broken in Women Church World, a supplement of the official Vatican daily, L'Osservatore Romano. An article in the February issue by editor Lucetta Scaraffia — a history professor, mother and feminist — blamed abuse of women and minors on the clerical culture of the all-powerful priesthood. The piece was based on hundreds of stories she heard from nuns.

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It's very hard for a nun to report she has been raped by a priest, says Scaraffia, because of the mindset that, in sex, women can always say no.

"These nuns believe they're the guilty ones for having seduced that holy man into committing sin," she says, "because that's what they've always been taught."

Adding to the trauma, she says, raped nuns who get pregnant become outcasts from their orders.

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"These poor women are forced to leave their order and live alone raising their child with no help," she says. "Sometimes they're forced to have abortions — paid by the priest because nuns have no money."

"We are unobserved, invisible, ignored and not respected"

Sister Catherine Aubin, a French Dominican nun who teaches theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome, says the abuse is the result of male domination in church leadership.

"These nuns believe they're the guilty ones for having seduced that holy man into committing sin, because that's what they've always been taught," says Lucetta Scaraffia, the editor of a women's supplement to the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.

Sylvia Poggioli/NPR

"The Vatican is a world of men," she says. "Some truly are men of God. Others have been ruined by power. The key to these secrets and silence is ... abuse of power. They climb up a career staircase toward evil."

Aubin, who also works on Women Church World, describes women's treatment inside the male Vatican world this way: "We are unobserved, invisible, ignored and not respected."

The first extensive report on abuse of women in the church was in 1994 by an Irish nun, Sister Maura O'Donohue. Her report covered more than 20 countries — mostly in Africa, but also Ireland, Italy, the Philippines and the United States.

In the report, O'Donohue, who died in 2015, linked sexual abuse of nuns in Africa to the AIDS epidemic: Religious sisters were considered less likely to carry the virus.

She cited a 1988 case from Malawi, where a bishop dismissed the leaders of a women's religious order because they complained that 29 nuns had been made pregnant by local priests. She also reported that a priest arranged for a nun to have an abortion; the nun died during the abortion, and the priest then officiated at her funeral.

O'Donohue briefed Vatican officials on her findings, but the document was shelved. Its contents were made public only in 2001 by the National Catholic Reporter, which also publicized another report, from 1998, titled "The Problem of the Sexual Abuse of African Religious in Africa and in Rome."

A "culture of silence and secrecy"

Pope Francis during his weekly general audience at Saint Peter's Square on Feb. 27.

Alberto Pizzoli/Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images

In St. Peter's Square on a recent Sunday morning, a Mexican nun, Sister Silvia Lopez, was thrilled the pope had made public what, among nuns, has long been a painful secret.

"The pope spoke out about abuse of nuns, and now the whole church must also denounce these terrible things," she said.

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Last fall, the International Union Superiors General, the organization that represents the world's female Catholic religious orders, urged sisters to defy a "culture of silence and secrecy" and speak out.

In India, a nun has reported a bishop to police, accusing him of raping her more than a dozen times. He's out on bail, awaiting trial. In Chile, the Vatican is investigating a small order of nuns after a national TV channel revealed some sisters had been kicked out after reporting sexual abuse by priests.

An investigation by The Associated Press last summer found the Vatican had not punished offenders for abuse of nuns in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

"I think the movement of #MeToo has absolutely an influence on the fact that the abuse of nuns comes into the press and on the public forum," says Karlijn Demasure, a Belgian expert on sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults who teaches at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

There's no data on the issue, she says, but anecdotal evidence indicates rape of nuns happens not just in the developing world. Media attention, says Demasure, is helping shed light on a longstanding taboo.

"It's the first time that it is accepted in the public forum that adult women can be victims of men," she says. "And this is very important because before you had [society] blaming the victim" and seeing the woman as the one "who was seducing."

Sister Bernardine Pemii from Nigeria, who works as a teacher in Ghana, recently completed a course at the Pontifical Gregorian University on protection of children and vulnerable adults. On her return home, she says she'll focus on abuse of women.

"I am going to empower the nuns," says Pemii. "I want to give them a forum to talk about it. If such a thing has happened to them, they should let us know. I would guarantee them that their voices will be heard."

"I don't want to be dependent on church leaders again"

At a recent press conference in Rome, Doris Wagner, a German former nun, was among those making their voices heard.

Doris Wagner (right), a former nun, speaks at a news conference on abuse survivors in Rome on Feb. 19.

Alessandra Tarantino/AP

Wagner, who also goes by her married name, Reisinger, has written about being raped by the male superior of her convent when she was 24. After that, she says, another priest made sexual advances on her during confession.

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When scandals over clerical abuse of minors hit Germany in 2010, Wagner was inspired to report the abuses she'd suffered to her mother superior.

"She became furious," says Wagner. But the fury was not at Wagner's abusers.

"She was literally jumping on her feet," says Wagner. "She was shouting at me. The first question she was able to ask was, 'Have you used contraceptives?' And it was then that I understood that she just refused to understand."

Her former confessor, the Rev. Hermann Geissler, later became chief of staff of the theology section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that handles sex abuse allegations. In January, after Wagner went public with her accusations, he stepped downbut denied the accusation against him.

Wagner, now married and a mother, works as a headhunter for a German company and says she will never work again for the Catholic Church.

"I don't want to be in a vulnerable position," she says. "You know, I don't want to be dependent on church leaders again."

Wagner is calling for full investigations of all cases known to the Vatican — that it identify, convict and punish the perpetrators. She also wants compensation for victims, especially nuns who become pregnant.

CorrectionMarch 19, 2019

A previous Web version of the story said Sister Bernardine Pemii is from Ghana and works in Nigeria. In fact, she is from Nigeria and works in Ghana.

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You never know someone until you fight them

Don't take my word for it, see for yourself


https://www.google.com/search?q=catholic+priests+nuns+child+rape&client=ms-android-americamovil-us-revc&source=android-browser&prmd=niv&sxsrf=ALeKk02F55025L_qfSPMW8BwC_I3VHsFkA:1592322769180&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiN5ZjI2IbqAhV5SjABHTP9AmQQ_AUoAnoECAsQAg&biw=360&bih=520&dpr=2

Very true, here in Nigeria a know a handful of priest and reverend fathers who are after young Nigerian girls, they love sex like monkey loves Banana

Don't trust anyone always question

Remember hypocrites have no bounds!

They need scape goats so question everything!

It is a crime to fund criminals so why are African Catholics supporting these pedophiles and rapists?

They are consistent rapists and child defiliers so I know that Romans cooked up this Rape Protest same as Coronavirus and St. Corona.

Rome is a cult of evil who don't like anyone who isnt one of them. This is how Black Romans built Rome making legions out of anyone who would serve Rome. And those who didnt were attacked and crucified. They have not changed since murdering Christ.


St. Corona is Coronavirus and Romans and Catholics are laughing at people too stupid to know it's a hoax.


Wake up out your slumber

End child sacrifice


Pedophilia is child sacrifice

Rape or rapture

Rapture of the church


Name them devils or suffer the wrath of change

Name them devils or suffer the wrath of change

Name them devils or suffer the wrath of change


Save your strength

Black Rome

Consistent rape

Name them devils or suffer the wrath of change

What no more rape protests now that we know who are the biggest unpunished rapists?


Hypocrites

5g is the Apocalypse which means to uncover to reveal

Where are they now with their rape protests?


Quiet as church mice

Hey church mice

Well where are those rapists now?

An enraged wife’s scream has exposed the alleged rape of a minor by her 42-year-old husband, Ahmadu Idris,

Idris had allegedly asked his victim, a 13-year-old seller of wrappers, to take the wares to his wives in his house for them to make their choices.

According to father of the teenage girl, Musa Abubakar, the girl took the wrappers to the man’s house, not knowing that the wives were not at home.

Abubakar said the man trailed his daughter and pounced on her the moment they arrived the house, threatening to kill her if she shouted.

The man’s luck ran out, however, because the younger wife on whose bed he took her to suddenly returned to the house and caught the man in the act.

Our correspondent learnt, enraged to find her husband on top of a stranger on her matrimonial bed, she screamed to attract attention.

The Adamawa State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Suleiman Nguroje, who confirmed the incident Wednesday, said it occurred in Ngwalam village in Numan local government area last week when the victim was sent by her grandmother to market some female wrappers to her neighbours.

Nguroje said the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of Numan local government area brought the matter which was transferred to Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the command in Yola.

He assured that the case would be treated with diligence and the culprit prosecuted according to the dictates of the law.


https://thenationonlineng.net/wife-exposes-husband-who-rapes-minor/

Black the cruxifiers of the Black Christ

Black Rome