Nuns and priests who raise dissenting voices against Church authorities are left to live in a stifling situation for the rest of their life in their congregations, say former priests and nuns who left their priesthood and nunhood.
They were expressing solidarity with the nuns seeking justice for a fellow nun who accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the Jalandhar diocese of raping her multiple times.
J.J. Pallath, former priest and now vice-president of the Ex-Priests and Nuns Forum (EPNF), a platform of priests and nuns who left the priesthood and nunhood, said at a press conference here on Tuesday that the serious charges of rape raised by a nun against the Jalandhar Bishop and the suspected suicide of Sister Susan in a convent at Pathanapuram in Kollam highlighted what he called the alarming situation inside the congregations where their members were at the mercy of local bishops.
Most of the priests and nuns who joined the seminary or convent in their teenage were not able to quit their priesthood and nunhood because of their fear of social ostracism, Dr. Pallath said. “The state of nuns in convents is worse,” said Dr. Pallath. Calling for a rethink on the practice of asceticism, he said the EPNF was engaged in activities for rehabilitation of ex-priests and ex-nuns who faced ostracism.
Maria Kiran, a former nun and joint secretary of the EPNF, said at the press meet that so many nuns were left to live physically and mentally sick in their convents. Hailing from a Christian settler family in the eastern hill areas of this district, she said she was sent to become a nun when she was 15 in 1978. “I left the convent after 20 years to return to normal life, but I am still struggling to reconcile with the loss of my youthful days,” she added.
Benny Thomas, EPNF north zone secretary, said he was a victim of the authoritarianism of the church hierarchy after he started questioning the authorities. The EPNF members said parents often send their children to seminaries and convents thinking that the church congregations were paradises. Disclosures such as the rape charges against the Jalandhar Bishop should be eye-openers for them, they said.