Vatican faces #MeToo backlash: Nuns break decades of silence over abuse by priests after being inspired by worldwide movement
Nun tells how she has been put off going to regular confession after priest forces himself on her
She is one of a handful to come forward on the issue of the sexual abuse of religious sisters by priests and bishops
They are going public in part because of years of inaction by church leaders
By BRENDAN MCFADDEN
DAILYMAIL.COM
28 July 2018
A nun has told how she no longer goes to confession regularly after an Italian priest forced himself on her while she was recounting her sins to him in a university classroom.
At the time of the incident 20 years ago, the sister said she only told her provincial superior and her spiritual director.
She felt 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 said.
‘I pretended it didn’t happen.’
After decades of silence, the nun is one of a handful worldwide to come forward recently on the issue of the sexual abuse of religious sisters by priests and bishops, who have been buoyed by the #Me Too movement
An Associated Press examination has found that cases have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, demonstrating that the problem is global and pervasive, thanks to the tradition of sisters’ second-class status in the Catholic Church and their ingrained subservience to the men who run it.
Nuns are also finding their voices thanks to the growing recognition that adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship.
The sisters say they are going public in part because of years of inaction by church leaders, even after major studies on the problem in Africa were reported to the Vatican in the 1990s.
The issue has flared in the wake of scandals over the sexual abuse of children, and recently of adults, including revelations that one of the most prominent American cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused and harassed his seminarians.
The extent of the abuse of nuns is unclear, at least outside the Vatican.
Victims are reluctant to report the abuse because of well-founded fears they won’t be believed, experts said.
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