DUE TO TO MANY CASES OF CHILD ABUSE FROM
THE CHURCH HAPPENING SINCE EVER ... THIS PAGE IS OUTDATED
PS: THIS IS NO JOKE - IT'S HAPPENING FOR REAL
!
THIS IS A TRUE AOL ARTICLE !
Report: Priests, Missionaries Sexually
Abuse Nuns
Reuters
Mar 20 2001 6:08PM
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican acknowledged Tuesday a damning report that
some priests and missionaries were forcing nuns to have sex with them, and were
in some cases committing rape and forcing the victims to have abortions.
Some nuns were forced to take the contraceptive pill, the report cited in the
Rome daily la Repubblica said.
The Vatican said the issue was restricted to a certain geographical area,
but the report cited cases in 23 countries, including the United States,
Brazil, the Philippines, India, Ireland and Italy.
"The stories are horrifying and disturbing to say the least,"
said Bill Ryan, spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
However he added that he was not aware of anything similar in the United
States.
"The National Catholic Reporter... offered no documentation for that.
I don't know how you would investigate something like that unless you had
specifics or a charge," he added.
The charges first appeared in the Kansas City-based National Catholic
Reporter weekly on March 16 and in a small Italian religious news agency
Adista, which also publishes a weekly.
LIMIT OF HUMAN ENDURANCE
Missionary news agency MISNA condemned the abuse while recalling that
missionaries often worked "at the limit of human endurance." It urged
the media to remember the good deeds of missionaries around the world as well
as their failings.
A Vatican statement said "in relation to the news of cases of sexual
abuse against nuns committed by priests and missionaries, Chief Vatican
spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls had the following announcement:
"The problem is known about and is restricted to a certain
geographical area.
"The Holy See is dealing with the issue in collaboration with bishops,
the Union of Superiors General (grouping of heads of male religious orders) and
the International Union of Superiors General (heads of female religious
orders)."
While the Vatican did not name the geographical area, the report said most
incidents of sexual abuse against nuns occurred in Africa where the nuns were
identified as "safe" following the onset of the HIV and AIDS viruses
devastating the continent.
NUNS FORCED TO ABORT
Charges made in the report, signed with names and surnames, were made known
to Church authorities on several occasions throughout the 1990s, the article by
la Repubblica's respected Vatican correspondent Marco Politi said.
The author of the report was nun and physician Maura O'Donohue, who
presented it to the head of the Vatican's Congregation for Holy Orders,
Cardinal Martinez Somalo, in February 1995.
He ordered a working group from the Congregation to study the problem with
O'Donohue, who was AIDS coordinator for Cafod, the London-based Roman Catholic
Fund for Overseas Development.
O'Donohue made specific reference to certain cases, one in which a priest
forced a nun to have an abortion, after which she died. He then officiated at
her requiem mass.
In reference to Africa, her report said: "It is impossible (there) for
a woman or an adolescent to refuse a man, especially an older man and in
particular a priest."
In Africa, certain priests sought out nuns "for fear of contracting
AIDS with prostitutes."
"There are cases in which priests make nuns take the pill, ...and
there was one case of 20 nuns in one religious community being pregnant at the
same time," the article cited the report as saying.
A mother superior was continually ignored by the local bishop when she
complained that priests in the diocese had made 29 of her nuns pregnant. The
bishop relieved her of her duties, the report said without identifying the
diocese.
SEXUAL FAVORS
In 1998, Marie McDonald, mother superior of the Missionaries of Our Lady of
Africa, presented her report on "sexual abuse and rape committed by
priests and bishops."
The Vatican is monitoring the situation, making sure bishops were aware of
the phenomenon, but no direct action has been taken, the article said.
Vatican spokesman Navarro-Valls said in his statement: "We are working
on two fronts, training of people and finding a solution to individual cases.
"Some negative cases cannot let us forget the often heroic faith
expressed by the large majority of those men and women in religious orders and
of the clergy."
MISNA echoed his words, saying: "If on the one hand... these incidents
of alleged sexual abuse cannot and should not be denied or justified, on the
other hand they prompt us to reflect on the conditions in which the majority of
the tens of thousands of missionaries live on the fringes of the so-called
Third World.
"Many of them live in situations of extreme psychological and physical
hardship, at the limits of human endurance."
La Repubblica quoted McDonald as she knew of no inspections taking place
after her report.
"Then there is the conspiracy of silence which makes the problem
worse. Only if we confront this together, will we be able to find a
solution," she said.
RTR/INTERNATIONAL-VATICAN-ABUSE-DC/
Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. The
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