In a special report by Lucetta Scaraffia, there are accounts of rape, sexual abuse, and coverups by Catholic priests. A growing number of nuns are speaking out about the suffering they have endured at the hands of the priesthood. Some of which include rape, emotional abuse, forced abortion, and exploitation.
This comes at a crucial time when the Vatican has taken concrete steps to address a long ordeal with sex abuse and coverups. Here are the accounts of two nuns. Their names and location have been withheld for privacy purposes.
A 44-year-old nun filed a police complaint against the bishop who oversees her order, accusing him of raping her 13 times over two years.
“Some people accused me of working against the church, saying I was working for Satan. I was barely out of my teens, teaching in a Catholic school in the early 1990s. One night, a priest in his 60s who was supposed to be leading the nuns in reflection went to a neighborhood party. He came back late and knocked at my room. I could smell the alcohol. I told him he was not stable and I was not ready to see anybody. But he forced his way in, tried to kiss me and grabbed at my body. Weeping, I pushed him back enough to slam the door.
Afterward, I quietly told the mother superior, who let me avoid meeting the priest again. I also wrote anonymously to church officials. The priest was reassigned. But there were no public reprimands, no warnings to other nuns. I was too afraid to challenge him openly.”
The second account…
“I joined the convent in 2003, and I was raped in 2008. He came into the room, closed the door behind him, was sitting on my right hand on the sofa. And he just started to undress me. I had to encounter him every day. He was preaching at the chapel, giving me holy communion. He was sitting at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner at the same table. I was ironing his shirts.”
The Vatican can no longer ignore the scandal. This year, Pope Francis made admission and acknowledged what had been a long known dirty secret of the Roman Catholic Church. That some priests had been sexually abusing nuns.
He said, “I think it’s still going on because it’s not something that just goes away like that. On the contrary, the Church has suspended several clerics and the Vatican has been working on the issue for a long time. I don’t want to hear it said that the Church has not got this problem, because it has. Must we do more? Yes! Do we want to? Yes”.
