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 PRIESTLY ABUSE OF NUNS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM 
 
 Long before the most recent incidents, confidential reports into the problem focused on Africa and AIDS were prepared in the 1990s by members of religious orders for top church officials. Nuns, she reported, were considered "safe" sexual partners for priests who feared they might be infected with HIV if they went to prostitutes or women in the general population. The sisters are going public in part because of years of inaction by church leaders, even after major studies on the problem in Africa were reported to the Vatican in the 1990s. In one instance, according to ODonohue, a priest took a nun for an abortion, and she died during the procedure. Harassment common In McDonalds report, she states that sexual harassment and even rape of sisters by priests and bishops is allegedly common, and that sometimes when a sister becomes pregnant, the priest insists that she have an abortion. She said her report referred mainly to Africa and to African sisters, priests and bishops -- not because the problem is exclusively an African one, but because the group preparing the report drew mainly on their own experience in Africa and the knowledge they have obtained from the members of their own congregations or from other congregations -- especially diocesan congregations in Africa. We know that the problem exists elsewhere too, she wrote. The problem of sexual abuse in Africa is most common, according to many observers, among members of diocesan religious congregations with little money and no network of international support. Sisters sent abroad to Rome and other countries for studies are often too young and/or immature, lack language skills, preparation and other kinds of support, and frequently turn to seminarians and priests for help, creating the potential for exploitation. No, sisters can sometimes be only too willing and can also be naïve. Silence. Others have actually encouraged abortion for sisters with whom they have been involved. She joined the congregation and soon afterwards found she was pregnant. The bishop denied the accusation and said the woman was retaliating against him for having taken disciplinary action against her for her own sexual misdeeds. In one country, women superiors have had to request the bishop or men superiors to remove chaplains, spiritual directors or retreat directors after they abused sisters. Those most directly affected are the women abused, wrote ODonohue. New guidelines Wolf, the Benedictine leader in Rome, said, Several monasteries already have guidelines in case a monk is accused of sexual misconduct, taking care of the individuals concerned, the victim included. Petite but not frail, she was so shocked, she said, that she grabbed him by the shoulders and with all her strength, stood up and pushed him back into his chair. "Consecrated women have to be encouraged to speak up when they are molested," the official told the AP. Jordi Bertomeu when they came to Chile the second time to gather information on abuse cases. Pamela Schaeffers e-mail address is pschaeffer@natcath.org Documents related to the above story will be available on the NCR Web site at www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/documents/index.htm National Catholic Reporter, March 16, 2001 Top of page
– "It opened a great wound inside of me. I pretended it didn't happen." So says a nun who claims an Italian priest sexually assaulted her while she was confessing to him about 20 years ago in Bologna. A new AP investigation finds she's not alone: Religious sisters are apparently being abused by bishops and priests in Asia, South America, Africa, and Europe, and usually keeping quiet about the assaults. That changed this week when five nuns appeared on national TV in Chile and told their stories of sexual abuse by priests and other nuns, Crux reports. It's an older story in Africa, where reports have emerged of priests abusing nuns and pressuring them into abortions; a six-year study and follow-up report for the Vatican found 29 nuns impregnated at one congregation. The National Catholic Reporter revealed that study in 2001, but what the Church did is unclear. Meanwhile, the Vatican remains quiet on the issue and lacks rules to probe and punish abusers, leaving it to local church leaders to take action. "Consecrated women have to be encouraged to speak up when they are molested," says a Vatican official on the condition of anonymity. "Bishops have to be encouraged to take them seriously, and make sure the priests are punished if guilty." But amid #MeToo and an ever-widening Catholic Church abuse scandal, more nuns may be speaking up for themselves. "I see it as two freedoms: freedom of the weight for a victim, and freedom of a lie and a violation by the priest," says the nun allegedly assaulted in Bologna. "I hope this helps other sisters free themselves of this weight."