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April 10, 2001
From Louisville, KY diocesan newspaper THE RECORD, 3/29/01
Vatican works to correct sexual abuse of nuns by priests in missionary lands
By JOHN NORTON, Catholic News Service
The Vatican has acknowledged the problem of sexual abuse of nuns by priests in some missionary territories and said it was working with bishops and religious orders to correct it.
Following the March 20 statement, missionary officials and senior members of religious orders said the dimensions and geographical extent of the sexual abuse were largely unknown and complicated by sometimes overlapping issues of cultural practice and failure to live celibacy vows.
They also said instances of sexual abuse and misconduct did not paint a complete picture of the church in Africa and elsewhere. But the acknowledgment drew attention to long standing concerns that the African church's rapid growth has not been accompanied by adequate formation or commitment.
Joaquin Navarro-Valls, papal spokesman, said that "some negative situations" should not obscure the "often-heroic faithfulness of the great majority of men and women religious and priests."
He said the problem "is restricted to a limited geographical area," which he did not identify, and said the Vatican was addressing it through the dual approach of formation of persons and of solving individual cases."
His statement came in an apparent response to a mid-March article in the National Catholic Reporter, a U.S. weekly, which asserted that sexual abuse of religious women by priests, including rape, was a serious problem, especially in Africa.
The article cited five internal church reports, several of which were presented at the Vatican, written between 1994 and 1998 by senior members of women's religious orders and a U.S. priest.
The article said some Catholic clergy have exploited their financial and spiritual authority to gain sexual favors from nuns, a situation facilitated by cultural subservience of women in some regions.
In Africa, where HIV and AIDS are rampant, young nuns are sometimes seen as safe targets of sexual activity by priests and other males, it said.
The reports cited did not name alleged abusers or victims and only once named a country-specific incident: a bishop in Malawi who dismissed the leaders of a diocesan women's congregation in 1988 after they complained that 29 sisters had been impregnated by diocesan priests.
In a joint statement March 21, the two main associations of men and women religious respectively, the Union of Superiors General and the International Union of Superiors General under-scored their awareness of the problem and said they were taking concrete steps to address it.
Sister Rita Burley, superior general of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and International Union of Superiors General president, said the steps included tougher standards for admission into religious life, a focus on human development in formation, and resolution of specific cases of abuse.
The unions' statement said the great majority of the church's 1 million nuns and 200,000 religious men faithfully and courageously witness the Christian message, a reality "which often in today's world 'never makes news.' "
The two main associations of U.S. religious - the Conference of Major Superiors of Men and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious - said they were "deeply disturbed" by the reports of sexual abuse by priests.