{"id":115490,"date":"2019-02-03T09:06:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-03T13:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=115490"},"modified":"2019-02-03T09:06:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T13:06:36","slug":"roman-catholic-church-finally-acknowledges-longstanding-sexual-abuse-against-nuns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=115490","title":{"rendered":"Roman Catholic Church Finally Acknowledges Longstanding Sexual Abuse Against Nuns"},"content":{"rendered":"

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St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. A new magazine article marks a significant public acknowledgment from inside the Vatican of a decades-long pattern of rape and other sexual abuse of nuns by priests. (Andreas Solaro \/ AFP\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Nuns were sexually abused by priests as church looked the other way, Vatican magazine says<\/h2>\n

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
\nLos Angeles Times<\/p>\n

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The Vatican women\u2019s magazine is denouncing the rape and other sexual abuse of nuns by priests and the resulting scandal of religious sisters having abortions or giving birth to children who go unrecognized by their fathers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The February issue of Women Church World, a monthly magazine, on Friday cited Pope Francis\u2019 own analysis of abuse, saying that unchecked clerical power was at the root of the problem of priests<\/a> preying on young children as well as adult nuns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It said nuns have been silenced for years by fear of retaliation against them or their orders if they report the priests who molested or raped them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The publication marks a significant public acknowledgment from inside the Vatican of the problem that the Holy See has long known about but has done next to nothing to address.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Last year, after the Associated Press and other media reported on the scandal, the international association of women\u2019s religious orders urged sisters to report abuse to police and their superiors, a significant shattering of the silence that has long kept the problem secret.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf you point to power, to clericalism, the abuse against religious sisters takes on another aspect and can finally be recognized for what it is: an act of power in which touch becomes a violation of one\u2019s personal intimacy,\u201d editor Lucetta Scaraffia wrote in Friday\u2019s article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It noted that religious sisters told Vatican officials as far back as the 1990s about priests sexually abusing nuns in Africa because they were considered \u201csafe\u201d targets during the HIV crisis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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While little or nothing changed, sisters from the developing world and also wealthier countries are beginning to denounce their abuse as part of an overall demand for greater power for women in the church \u2014 part of the #MeToo movement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf the church continues to close its eyes to the scandal \u2014 made even worse by the fact that abuse of women brings about procreation and is therefore at the origin of forced abortions and children who aren\u2019t recognized by priests \u2014 the condition of oppression of women in the church will never change,\u201d Scaraffia wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The issue has been in the headlines lately after a nun in India filed a police report accusing her bishop of rape. The bishop has denied her claims, and the controversy has split her religious community, which is financially dependent on the diocese.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe priests and even more, the bishops, have a huge power, not just over a single nun but over a whole congregation,\u201d Scaraffia told the AP in an interview Friday. \u201cSo if an abused nun goes to her superior general and says that she has been abused, she will be told, \u2018Keep quiet, because if you don\u2019t this bishop will turn against us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Women Church World, which is published in Italian, French and Spanish, last year made headlines with an issue devoted to work and an article denouncing how nuns are often treated like indentured servants by cardinals and bishops, for whom they cook and clean for next to no pay.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In an opening editorial, one of Italy\u2019s leading Jewish intellectuals, Anna Foa, said the abuse scandal had transformed a caress \u201cinto an expression in and of itself suspect and practically obscene.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Foa also cited Francis\u2019 words in \u201cthanking journalists who were honest and objective in discovering predator priests and made the voices of victims heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nhttps:\/\/www.latimes.com\/world\/la-fg-vatican-nuns-abuse-20190201-story.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}