The silent struggle: Nuns speak out against sexual abuse in the Catholic church
Nuns sexually assaulted by priests are one of the last Catholic taboos, but with reports of abuse rising, it is a scandal that will be difficult for the future pope to ignore.
"In the past, the nuns suffered a lot and couldn't talk about it to anyone; it was like a secret," Sister Cristina Schorck told AFP, walking through St Peter's Square with her parents.
After an unprecedented summit at the Vatican on clerical sexual violence in 2019, a series of measures were taken, including lifting the pontifical secret on abuse and an obligation for people to report cases to their superiors.
"It's both still a taboo and something that has progressed" because "it's never been talked about as much as it is today," Sister Veronique Margron, President of the Conference of Religious of France, told AFP.
The slow shift in attitudes is exemplified by the case of the influential Slovenian priest and mosaics artist Marko Rupnik, accused by nuns of sexual and psychological violence against them in the early 1990s.
It was only under pressure that Francis lifted the statute of limitations in 2023 to open proceedings against him.
Laura Sgro, the Italian lawyer for five of his accusers, told AFP that nuns should be better protected "both by states and by canon law", notably by extending the statute of limitations, and said the next pope must act "immediately".
Victims' associations say the Vatican has not done enough, particularly by refusing to remove confessional secrecy.
https://iol.co.za/news/world/2025-05-04-...ic-church/
Nuns sexually assaulted by priests are one of the last Catholic taboos, but with reports of abuse rising, it is a scandal that will be difficult for the future pope to ignore.
"In the past, the nuns suffered a lot and couldn't talk about it to anyone; it was like a secret," Sister Cristina Schorck told AFP, walking through St Peter's Square with her parents.
After an unprecedented summit at the Vatican on clerical sexual violence in 2019, a series of measures were taken, including lifting the pontifical secret on abuse and an obligation for people to report cases to their superiors.
"It's both still a taboo and something that has progressed" because "it's never been talked about as much as it is today," Sister Veronique Margron, President of the Conference of Religious of France, told AFP.
The slow shift in attitudes is exemplified by the case of the influential Slovenian priest and mosaics artist Marko Rupnik, accused by nuns of sexual and psychological violence against them in the early 1990s.
It was only under pressure that Francis lifted the statute of limitations in 2023 to open proceedings against him.
Laura Sgro, the Italian lawyer for five of his accusers, told AFP that nuns should be better protected "both by states and by canon law", notably by extending the statute of limitations, and said the next pope must act "immediately".
Victims' associations say the Vatican has not done enough, particularly by refusing to remove confessional secrecy.
https://iol.co.za/news/world/2025-05-04-...ic-church/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
