- Roman Catholic priests and bishops in several parts of
the world have been exploiting their religious authority to obtain sexual
favours from nuns, in some cases resorting to rape and subsequently obliging
the victims to seek an abortion, it was claimed yesterday.
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- Report of widespread sexual abuses were compiled by two
senior nuns between 1994 and 1998 and passed to the Vatican, the Rome daily
La Repubblica and the Italian Roman Catholic news agency Adista said.
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- Abuses were documented in 23 countries, many of them
in Africa, but also in Ireland, Italy, the US, the Philippines and Brazil,
they said.
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- The Vatican acknowledged the existence of the problem
yesterday and said it was working with bishops and the heads of religious
orders to try to resolve it.
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- "The problem is known and is restricted to a limited
geographic area," its spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said.
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- "A few negative situations must not make us forget
the often heroic faithfulness of the vast majority of monks, nuns and priests."
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- The Aids epidemic in Africa has led to nuns being seen
as a potential source of safe sex, according to Sister Maura O'Donohue,
of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, who visited numerous African countries
to conduct an Aids study on behalf of the Catholic development agency Cafod.
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- "The superior of a religious community in one country
was contacted by priests who asked her to make the nuns available for sexual
services," she wrote.
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- On the superior's refusal, the priests said they would
otherwise have to go to the village to look for women, exposing themselves
to the risk of Aids."
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- The reports, one of which is said to have been delivered
three years ago to Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, head of the Vatican
department responsible for religious orders, say young female candidates
for religious life are sometimes obliged to have sex with a priest to obtain
the necessary certificates.
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- Nuns who became pregnant were forced to leave their religious
congregation, the reports say, while the priests responsible were simply
sent away for a brief period.
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- In one community 29 nuns are reported to have become
pregnant after sexual relations with priests, but when the mother superior
raised the problem with her archbishop she was removed from her post. One
priest is said to have induced a nun he had impregnated to have an abortion
and when she died during the operation he celebrated her funeral mass.
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- Another priest is reported to have been driven from his
village by gunfire when the local men got fed up with the way he abused
his power with their women.
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- Many African women have been raised to consider themselves
inferior to men, and so find it difficult to say no to requests for sexual
favours by priests, who are seen as authority figures, according to a report
by Sister Marie McDonald, superior general of the Missionaries of Our Lady
of Africa, quoted by Adista.
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- The priests are better educated than the nuns and sometimes
use false theological arguments to persuade them, suggesting, for example,
that sex between two celibate religious does not violate their vows of
celibacy, she said.
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- Father Bernardo Cervellera, editor of the missionary
news agency Fides, said the problem was largely confined to Africa, where
the ideal of celibacy met resistance from cultural beliefs that set great
store on fatherhood.
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- "In 25 years as a missionary priest I have never
encountered this situation. I have come across the opposite, where priests
have defended nuns from assault," he said.
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- "We shouldn't confuse a few individual errors with
a tendency. I admire many African priests, who live their vocation with
great heroism."
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- © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
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