Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: cattolicesimo in India

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1882176,00.html?xid=newsletter-daily
A Former Nun's Memoirs Rock India's Catholic Church
After 26 years as a nun, Jesme Raphael gave up her robes and walked
out of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel, the Catholic order in
Kerala, India, that had been her home for three decades. Two years
later, Raphael, now 53, has come out with her memoirs, Amen: An
Autobiography of A Nun, cataloging lurid details of bullying, sexual
abuse and homosexuality in the oldest Catholic women's order in the
idyllic coastal state in southern India. Shocking as it is, the book
is only the latest in a long series of accusations and scandals
afflicting the Catholic Church in the state with the largest
population of Christians in India.
"All the brothers here send you greetings. Greet one another with a
holy kiss [1 Corinthians 16:20]," Raphael quotes a priest as telling
her, after she confronted him with allegations that "he kissed almost
everyone who went for one-on-one meetings." In other episodes, she
tells of a forced lesbian encounter, being forced to strip in front of
a naked priest who then masturbated, and being accused of being
mentally unstable on complaining to her superiors.
Since the book's release on January 30, publishers DC Books have
already sold all 3,000 copies, and a reprint has been ordered. The
Catholic church is miffed. "There is no dearth of anti-religion people
in Kerala society," says Dr Stephen Alathara, deputy secretary of the
Kerala Catholic Bishops Council. "They are using this for their anti-
social, anti-church activities." In 1957, Kerala elected the world's
first democratically elected communist government, and it has been
under communist rule since the last state elections in 2006.
A spokesperson for the Syro-Malabar order of the Catholic Church,
Father Paul Thelakkat, adds that Raphael's allegations stem from "some
wounded feelings" which Raphael should have raised with the church
instead of "maligning the life of religious nuns". He goes on to add
that Raphael's allegations are "not especially serious". "The church
never claims there's no sin within the church," he says. "We're not
angels, we're human beings of flesh and blood, so some omissions and
failures can happen. But the church is perennially on a path of
renewal and reformation; we're trying to deal with these problems and
such allegations."
There has been no shortage of them in recent months. On February 11,
Sister Josephine, a nun in the Daughters of Mary congregation in
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala's state capital, was found dead in her room
in an apparent suicide. Members of the congregation said the 38-year-
old nun had been under treatment for depression. After news of the
incident spread, a crowd gathered around the house and shouted slogans
alleging that harassment had led Sister Josephine to kill herself. The
police had to intervene, and an inquiry into the case was later
ordered. Six months earlier, on August 11 of last year, 23-year-old
Sister Anoopa Mary had been found hanging in her room in St Mary's
Convent in Kollam, north of the capital. In what was purportedly her
suicide note, she had said she could no longer withstand the senior
nuns' harassment. Her father, a cook in the local Bishop's house,
charged that sexual exploitation had led his daughter to take her
life. The convent has denied the allegations, though a court
investigation is still ongoing.
Recently, there have been expulsions and other disciplinary action in
response to other cases of misconduct within the Church. In June last
year, a nun in a Christian hospital was expelled after a video of her
having sex with a driver was circulated over mobile phones and the
Internet. In October, Pope Benedict XVI suspended a bishop in the
coastal city of Cochin after his adoption of a 26-year-old woman as
his daughter raised questions. The bishop has denied any wrongdoing,
and said he adopted the woman out of fatherly love. But the church
took him off all duties and instituted an inquiry.
"Such problems have been there in almost all convents [in Kerala],"
says Joseph Pulikunnel, a veteran Syrian Catholic social reformer who
edits Osanna, a magazine aimed at Kerala's Catholic community. "The
convents are closed to the public; we don't know what is happening
inside." He says India's Catholic church, which accounts for 70% of
all denominations among India's 25 million Christians, owns vast
properties across the country, including over 30,000 educational
institutions and 6,000 hospitals. In Kerala, the Church runs 60% of
the private educational institutes. The state's near 100% literacy — a
singular case in a country where the average adult literacy rate is
just about 60% — is thanks largely to the church's zealous missionary
activity. Yet critics claim this gives the church a high degree of
political and economic power. Church reform activists also say the
affairs of the Catholic church — to which 60% of Kerala's Christians
belong — should be brought more directly under the control of Indian
authorities to make its workings more transparent. As of now, church
affairs are under the stewardship of the Pope.
In recent months, the church has been more forthcoming about the
problems it faces. Sathyadeepam, Kerala's Catholic weekly, released a
report in January that said almost 20% of the region's nuns — the
church says there are about 45,000 — feel "insecure or unaccepted" in
their convents. Cases of nuns speaking up like Raphael are still rare,
but there may be an avalanche building up due to the changing social
scene. Earlier, girls from disadvantaged families embraced the vows,
finding that life in a convent, while hard, saved them from the worst
of deprivation. But once in an order, they found it difficult to
complain or leave. "They simply had nowhere to go," says Pulikunnel,
"If they quit the convent, they'd be thrown out penniless, and their
families wouldn't take them back."
But times have changed. Churches around the world have been coming to
grips with legacies of quiet abuse, and Indian society, too, has
evolved. There is no longer a stigma attached to giving up the robes
and returning to the laity. There are plenty of well-paying jobs —
nursing has proven particularly attractive for Kerala women as it is
seen as a passport to a foreign job and big bucks — and many
youngsters are not up for a lifetime of celibacy and a religious
vocation. Although figures have not been collated, activists claim a
steady decline in the number of young people taking the vows, or, like
Raphael, renouncing their vows.
But to stem the rot that has set in, the church will first have to
admit the real nature and extent of the problem. If Dr. Alathara's
reaction is anything to go by, that candor is a long way off. When
asked about the numerous allegations of sexual abuse in the church, he
says, "[Alleging sexual abuse] is an old tool of hitting at the
ecclesiastical society. It's nothing new. It happened 2,000 years ago
too." Father Thelakkat's reaction is somewhat similar — though he
doesn't deny Raphael's allegations, he refuses to acknowledge their
seriousness either: "The incidents may be true, but they are isolated
cases." Clearly, it's time to connect the dots, and see the bigger
picture.
----
"una facile scusa per dimenticare il presente" (Luca Logi /
rodewalder / Golda Meir)
cfr 
http://raionim.blogspot.com/2008/12/una-facile-scusa.html

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