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VATICAN CITY
A nun no longer confesses herself as often as before, after an Italian priest took advantage of her while she was the most Vulnerable and told him about his sins in a university classroom almost 20 years ago.
At that time, the nun told only what had happened to her superior and her spiritual director and she was silenced by the secret culture of . for his vows of obedience and for his own fear, repulsion and shame.
He opened a great wound in me, "he said The Associated Press ." I claimed that it had not happened. "
After decades of silence, the nun is one of many nuns who have publicized a problem that the Catholic Church has not accepted: sexual abuse ] of nuns by priests and bishops An investigation of the AP found cases in Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia which shows that the problem is global and widespread, largely because of a tradition in which women are considered second-class people, class in the church and its subordination rooted to the men who lead it. [19659004] Some nuns showed their faces, pushed by the movement #MeToo (to me too) and by the growing recognition that adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is a imbalance of power in a relationship The sisters have made their partly because of years of inaction on the part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, although important studies on the problem in Africa were reported to the Vatican in the 1990s.
Scandal framework surrounding the sexual abuse of minors and more recently adults, including revelations that one of the most prominent cardinals in the United States, Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused and harassed seminarians.
The magnitude of abuse is not clear at least outside the Vatican.
Victims are reluctant to report abuse because they fear not to believe them, commented several experts. l & # 39; AP. Church leaders are reluctant to acknowledge that some priests and bishops simply ignore their wishes for celibacy, knowing that their secrets will not be disclosed.
However, this week, about half a dozen nuns in a small religious congregation in Chile have made public their stories of abuse by priests and other nuns on national television. They reported that their superiors did nothing to stop him.
A nun in India recently sued the police in which she accused a bishop of rape which was unthinkable a year ago. 19659003] Cases occur periodically in Africa. In 2013, for example, a prominent Ugandan priest wrote a letter to his superiors in which he spoke of "priests having romantic relationships with nuns" and was suspended until he presented apologies in May. The European nun spoke with the PA to help clarify the issue.
It saddens me that it took so long for this to come out because there have been denunciations for some time, "said Karlijn Demasure, AP. leading church experts on sexual abuse and abuse of power. "I hope steps are now being taken to address the victims and put an end to these abuses."
The Vatican declined to comment What measures, if any, did it take to deal with the scale of the problem at the international level, and what did it do? did it do to punish the offenders and take care of the victims? A Vatican official said local church leaders are responsible for punishing priests who sexually abuse nuns, but often these crimes go unpunished in civil and canonical courts. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to
The main obstacle faced by the nuns who have been abused is taken seriously, according to Demasure, who was until recently executive director of the Child Protection Center of the Pontifical Gregorian University, The main ecclesiastical organization that deals with this problem.
(The priests) They always say that they "wanted to do it," said Demasure. "And it's hard to put aside the impression that it's still the woman who seduces the man, not the opposite."
The nun who spoke with the AP about her incident in 2000 confession at a university in Bologna tightened her rosary by telling the details.
She says that she and the priest were sitting face to face in a classroom at the university. At one point, the priest got up and tried to rape her. Small but strong, she pushed him and removed him.
Then confessions continued. But the incident, and another episode in which another priest made sexual advances a year later, prompted him to no longer confess to any priest other than his spiritual father, who lives in another country.
Confession should be a place of salvation, liberty, and mercy, "said the nun.
From this experience, confession has become a place of sin and abuse of power.
The priest who told him what happened apologized "in the name of the church". But he said that no action was taken against his attacker, who was an eminent university professor.
The woman told her story in AP without knowing that at that very moment the funeral of the priest who was trying
The nun said that the death of the priest combined with his decision of Coping with it took a lot of weight.
I release myself twice: I get rid of the weight of the victim and I get rid of a lie and a rape of a priest, "he says," I am hope that it will help other nuns to get rid of this weight. "
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