Sexual abuse of nuns by priests:
A tragedy wider than Africa

The National Catholic Reporter broke the story March 16, but it quickly jumped to major news media around the world. The NCR reported that sexual abuse of nuns by priests, including rape, was a serious problem, especially though not solely in Africa. It cited five internal church reports, 1994 to 1998, several of which went to the Vatican, written by senior members of women’s religious orders and a U.S. priest. They told of priests who exploit their financial and spiritual authority to gain sexual favors from nuns. With H.I.V. and AIDS rampant in Africa, some priests see young nuns as safe targets for sex. In extreme cases, priests have impregnated nuns and then encouraged them to have abortions. The reports did not name alleged abusers, victims, or even the countries involved — except for one reference to Malawi, where a bishop dismissed the leaders of a diocesan women’s congregation in 1988 after they complained that 29 sisters had been impregnated by diocesan priests.

NCR editor Tom Roberts said the paper had been working on the story since 1999, knew the reports were being discussed privately by many orders of nuns, and understood why their leaders had hoped to get Church officials to deal with the problems without press publicity. But when the Vatican and the hierarchy seemed to be doing very little, NCR decided the wider church community needed to know of this tragedy. Said Roberts, “Women who have been victims must know they are not abandoned or ignored to protect the institution.” He also hoped “airing the reports will provide some safety for women religious who may be vulnerable” and “will prevent further abuse.”

Vatican response is weak

The Vatican has acknowledged the problem, but a papal spokesman said the problem is only in a limited geographical area, which he did not identify. (This is puzzling: the reports gave examples from 23 countries on five continents.) He said the Vatican was addressing the problem through bishops and through the two main international organizations of men and women religious, the Unions of Superiors General. Their counterparts in the U.S, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said they were deeply disturbed by the reports. A joint statement said, “In any culture or situation, those in power have an ethical responsibility not to exploit others for personal gains.”

Complicating the problem is mandatory celibacy, which is not accepted in African culture as having sign value. A missionary priest in Tanzania told Catholic News Service that violations of celibacy, including consensual sex between priests and nuns, were so widespread that the Vatican had trouble finding celibate local priests to nominate as bishops. But the Vatican isn’t saying much in public. Writes Tom Roberts, “This papacy, with its ban on discussion of ordaining women, optional celibacy and married priests, is not conducive to discussion of even more difficult issues.” So Vatican public credibility is further eroded.

In early April even the European Parliament assailed the Vatican, passing an unprece- dented motion blaming it for the rapes suffered by nuns in Africa in the 1990s.