Pope Francis talks of ‘all-out’ battle against child sexual abuse: Is the Catholic Church in India listening?
Two recent cases in Kerala seem to suggest that the Church was interested in protecting the guilty, rather than standing up for the abused and the most vulnerable.
The Catholic Church today seems globally beseeched, with hundreds of skeletons tumbling out of its cupboard as far as sexual abuse is concerned.
Rumours and whispers about the church and child sex abuse have been around for decades.
But the recent reports of the conviction of Cardinal George Pell — number three in the Vatican — in Australia, is the biggest blow yet. Considering that this comes on the heels of Pope Francis's promise to tackle Child Sexual Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, this conviction is almost providence.
The Pope said that priests who sexually abuse children are ‘tools of Satan’ and he pledged to face every case with ‘utmost seriousness’. Child Sexual Abuse, he said, reminded him of the ancient practice of child sacrifice. The Pope was speaking at the end of a four-day Roman Catholic Church Summit on paedophilia held in the Vatican City on February 21-24, attended by 130 country cardinals and archbishops.
Just days before the summit was held, Pope Francis defrocked former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for sexually abusing minors and adult seminarians. McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington DC, is the highest ranking priest to be removed from priesthood in recent times.
Closer home in India, Father Robin Vadakkumchery from Kerala was convicted of raping and impregnating a minor girl who was then 16 years of age, and was a student of a school where the accused was teaching.
This case revealed the lengths that the Roman Catholic Church in India, in seeming contrast to the news above, was apparently willing to go to protect their own.
The pressure that the victim’s family allegedly faced from the Mananthavady Diocese in Kannur district, Kerala, of which Father Robin is a part, is unbelievable. The whole family of the victim lied to the court and turned hostile. In fact, the father of the victim falsely told the court that he had raped his own daughter and that she was pregnant with his child.
One can only imagine the amount of pressure that the family was allegedly subjected to for the father to claim thus to the court that he had raped his daughter.
It was only because the DNA of the victim’s baby matched with Father Robin that he was even convicted.
Also, the birth certificate of the girl revealed that she was 16 at the time the rape occurred, though both the victim and her mother told the court that she was actually 18 at that time.
All the other accused in the case — the five nuns and one administrator accused of conspiracy to hide evidence — were acquitted for lack of evidence. The priest has still not been defrocked — despite his conviction.
The victim delivered the baby in a church-run hospital and they were then shifted to a church-run orphanage, though other reports say that the victim was told that her baby died in childbirth and that the baby was sent to the orphanage.
Then the family tried to prove that the victim was 18 when the alleged rape occurred and the victim even told the court that she was willing to marry Father Robin and live with him. Also, Father Robin apparently tried to leave for Canada on February 27, 2017.
It seems Father Robin didn't at any time think of his own priestly duty to confess to the crime, despite the Roman Catholic Church having a strong culture of confession. This, when Father Robin knew very well that the DNA of the child would prove the truth of the matter all along.
It is telling that Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican Ambassador to the US, said in his testimony in the McCarrick case said there was a “conspiracy of silence not so dissimilar from the one that prevails in the mafia”.
Instead of standing with the weak and voiceless and instead of protecting victims, which is what the church should be doing, it is apparently choosing repeatedly to stand with the abusers.
Another case in point is that of Bishop Franco Mullakal of the Jalandhar diocese, whom a nun has accused of raping her 13 times between 2014 and 2016. The victim was allegedly confined to her convent in Kuravilangad in Kerala and raped. Five fellow nuns of Missionaries of Jesus, the convent to which the rape victim belongs, have been supporting her by protesting publicly against the Bishop. These protests have been joined by many.
However, all these nuns and whoever else has been supporting the victim have reportedly been facing intense pressure, transfers and even threats and notices of expulsion.
Also, Father Kuriakose Kattuthara, who was a witness in the rape case, was found dead in Jalandhar last year while another priest, Father Augustine Vattoly, was apparently warned of action against him if he didn't stop participating in the stir against Bishop Franco.
While those who are supporting the victim are being harassed, Bishop Franco was given a warm welcome with garlands and fanfare when he was released from jail on bail.
Earlier in the month, Pope Francis admitted that clerics sexually abused nuns and in one instance, also kept them as sex slaves. The Pope said that though the church was trying to address this problem, it was still going on in the Roman Catholic Church.
What needs to be seen is how badly the Roman Catholic Church has fallen from its mandate to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Though the Pope has said that there needs to be an 'all-out battle' against child sexual abuse, activists have accused the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church of not doing enough.
When the rot is so deep, the Roman Catholic Church needs to take really drastic steps. After all, the Roman Catholic Church consists of 1.2 billion members globally and it is the largest religious institution in the world as well as the most powerful and wealthiest.
It professes to be the holder of the legacy of Jesus Christ. But instead of obeying the laws of the holy Bible given forth by God, the church seems to be more committed to obeying the laws of the institution — where silence and obedience to the Church seems to be held in higher esteem than speaking the truth and standing up for the rights of the weak and abused.
The RC Church in Kerala has issued guidelines for priests and said it will have a zero tolerance police, just a day after Pope Francis admitted to sexual exploitation of nuns by the clergy on February 6, 2019. The guidelines said it would reduce the priests to lay status if found guilty, but it reportedly didn't specify penal action when the crime is first reported.
No superficial bandaging will stem this rot — it needs radical, urgent, corrective and punitive measures. Whether the RC church will have the courage and will to do it, only time will tell.