The pope asks to fight against the abuses of the nuns

(EFE) .- Pope Francis asked to fight against "the serious problem of badual abuse committed against nuns throughout the world and to serve as servants.

Read: The pope's forces to denounce badual abuse and cover-ups

Pope Francis today held a meeting at the Vatican with the 850 religious who participated in the Assembly of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), which brings together 1,900 congregations and represents around 450 000 nuns.

Maltese President Carmen Sammut, president of the UISG, told the Pope that at these meetings she had discussed the abuse of minors in the Church, but also the religious victims of abuse and power, a problem they face "with courage and determination."

Sammut thanked the pope that in the law revealed yesterday in which all religious are forced to denounce cases of abuse, violence of all kinds against consecrated women was also included.

"The abuse of religious is a serious problem and I know it and it also exists in Rome for information that arrives," Francisco told the sisters of the Vatican's Paul VI Hall.

Francisco also asked to "fight" against the badual abuse, the power and the conscience, but also against the phenomenon according to which the nuns must be domestic.

"Please, serve yes, no bondage, you have not become religious to be an ecclesiastical servant," said the pope.

The pontiff also asked the congregations to help him solve the problem, since it is the superiors of the congregations who authorize it (that the nuns take care of the domestic tasks).

"Work in the dicasteries, in the administration of a nunciature, but not in the servants, but only in the homes of the sick, because that is the service, but not the servitude", he added.

In November 2018, the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) denounced the "culture of silence and secrecy" that often surrounds badual abuse cases and urged religious to report it to the police and the police. to their superiors. .

"We ask any abused nun to inform the head of her congregation, the church and the civil authorities, as appropriate," the IUGS asked.

Regarding the ordination of deaconesses, proposed by the UISG at its previous meeting with the Pope in 2016, Francisco reaffirmed, as he had done during the flight back from his trip to Bulgaria and Macedonia, that no agreement had been reached.

"This is not a great result, but it's a step forward," he said about the possibility of a female diaconate, degree of consecration before the priesthood and may confer authority to administer certain sacraments such as baptism and marriage.

The pope who skipped his written speech and preferred to answer the questions of the nuns accepted the invitation of one of them to attend the next badembly of the UISG to listen to the work done by the sisters.

"If I'm alive, I'll go if I do not remember my successor," he said.

Pope Francis has already acknowledged the problem of priests and bishops abusing certain nuns and said that he was working to find solutions to this "far-off" situation on his return journey from United Arab Emirates.

Already in 1990, after years of research in twenty-three countries on four continents, two sisters, Maura O. Donohue and Marie McDonald, presented to the Vatican a report on violence against nuns, particularly in Africa.

A recent French documentary titled "Abuse of Religious, Other Church Scandal" relieved, because for decades, sisters from all continents were badually badaulted by priests.

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