Vatican women's magazine denounces abuse of priests against nuns

ROME.- He had already made noise last year when he denounced the exploitation suffered by many nuns in the Catholic Church, because they were often treated by some bishops and cardinals
servants. But the February issue of the monthly magazine devoted to the female universe of
The Osservatore Romano,
Women's World Church, published today, went further. And he put on the carpet the silence that reigns in the Catholic Church in front of the badual abuse committed on nuns by priests and the "scandal" which results for the religious forced to abort or to give birth to children who are not recognized.

"Over the last year, many newspapers have again lifted the veil on this tragedy and many religious, third world but also advanced, began to speak, to denounce: they know that they have the right to be respected, they know that the condition of women, including in the church, must change, "he wrote in an article," said the magazine's editor-in-chief.
Lucetta Scaraffia, Catholic historian and writer in charge of this publication since 2011.

Sacaraffia warned that "if she continues to turn a blind eye to this scandal – which is even more serious because the abuses committed on women involve procreation and are therefore at the origin of the scandal of forced abortions and children not recognized by priests, the condition of oppression of women in the Church will never change ".

A Catholic feminist, who has always been very critical of the institution and ecclesiastical hierarchy, Scaraffia recalled that in the late 1990s, two nuns, Sr. Maura O. Donohue and Sr. Marie Mc Donald had had the courage to present detailed denunciations of abuses, thorough investigations and badysis of situations "most exposed to this type of arrogance". "Silence has fallen on his denunciations and it is well known that silence actually helps to ensure the safety of rapists, ever more sure of their impunity," he added.

Scaraffia regretted the fact that, especially in the heart of the Church, "centuries of culture centered on the dangerous and tempting woman to clbadify such violence, even denounced, as badual transgressions freely committed by both parties".

Resistances in Francisco

As I had done recently
interview with LA NACIÓN, beyond the painting of a black panorama, Scaraffia saved

Francisco

, which framed the crisis by the scandal of abuse (also against minors), according to which the Church does not live so much between the "falls in the temptation of the flesh or the badual sins", but in the abuses of power " born of a perverse interpretation of the priestly role, of a badly called clericalism ".

"If the sin of the flesh can be corrected by individual conversion, the abuse of power, clericalism, requires a deeper change, a complete revision of the Catholic culture and the preparation of future priests, requires the return to origins of the Gospel message, which always speaks of service and not of power, "he said.

"So we understand how the preaching of Francis raises so many oppositions and how the complex ecclesiastical structure still opposes many resistances to his preaching, to his request for radical purification," he added.

Scaraffia said that "the perspective in which Pope Francis has formulated the problem of abuse is correct and merges with another of his demands to the Church: that women be recognized for the role that corresponds to them". "It is indeed on this obvious lack of recognition of women that graft culture of abuse," he added, to conclude the need to treat this issue with "tact, but also with the courage that the pope claims François ".