Sister Jesme was in her twenties and new to convent life when she found herself alone in a room with a priest. Later, she was approached by a senior nun who asked her to engage in sexual acts. “I thought that perhaps if I submit to her, she will be OK,” Sister Jesme said. “So that happened. Other nuns, in a way, were encouraging me to submit to whatever she did. It was a homosexual-type thing.”
It took Sister Jesme another 20 years in a religious order before she felt she could speak out about what happened. “That vow of obedience is the most terrible hammer used on nuns. It is becoming the most important evil inside the convents,” she said. “Nuns are forced to be the slaves of priests. And if it’s a bishop? No way to escape.” Sister Jesme is one of an increasing number of Indian nuns coming forward about sexual abuse at the hands of senior clergy.
The Catholic Church in India is only just beginning to deal with the kinds of sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Church elsewhere. A bishop in the state of Kerala has been accused of raping a nun and other nuns have come forward with similar complaints. But they say the Church hierarchy is in denial and they have faced reprisals for speaking out.
She said she believes and supports the nun at the center of the rape case because she experienced similar sexual harassment as a young nun.
“I experienced that two or three times.”
Now 53 years old, Sister Lucy has been threatened with expulsion from her convent for “violating the lifestyle” expected of a nun. Not only did her superiors take issue with her speaking out, but they have accused her of violating the vows of poverty and obedience by driving a car and using a mobile phone. Sister Lucy got her driver’s license a year ago and took out a loan to buy a small car. She said being mobile allows her to visit the poor and the sick in her area, some of whom no one else has bothered to befriend.
Sister Lucy has taken her fight against the Church to India’s civil courts and is hoping that the system will prevent her from being thrown out of the religious order she loves. She wrote a letter to the Pope explaining her predicament but received no response. She hopes the Pope will intervene to end sexual abuse against nuns in one of the Church’s most devout strongholds. “Jesus said what is right is right always, what is truth is truth always, nobody can hide it,” she said. abc.net.au
