Ironically, the church leadership has been charged with protecting clergymen accused of crimes of lust in the name of the need to safeguard the unity and sacredness of the religious edifice. NCW’s call for abolition of confession before priests to save women from sexual exploitation should have prodded the church to indulge in introspection, not protest
When Catholic nun Jesme in her 2009 autobiography “Amen” described the sexual exploitation happening inside the church and how its totally male-dominated power hierarchy ruthlessly managed to hush up crimes within their secretive compounds, it had shocked Keralites and pained and enraged the community of believers. But the most recent sex scandals in the church involving ordinary priests and members of senior clergy show that what Sister Jesme talked about in her book constituted merely a part of a far deeper rot that has always been there as reports dating to several decades back suggest.
A typical example of the absolutely immoral and doubtlessly criminal saga is the rape case involving Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the latin Catholic Diocese of Jalandhar, a Keralite hailing from Thrissur district who according to many vicars, nuns and members of laity from his own jurisdiction is a person with various business interests. Bishop Mulakkal, 54, coming from a family belonging to the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church which has been trapped in a multi-crore-rupee land scam involving its chief, Major Archbishop Cardinal Mar George Alencherry, is accused of raping a senior Keralite nun, now 48, belonging to the Missionaries of Jesus Congregation that came under his diocese’s control, 13 times between 2014 and 2016 within the premises of her convent at Kuravilangad in Kerala’s Kottayam district.
Though she had taken her complaint against the Bishop to all relevant authorities of the church — from her parish priest, bishop of her diocese, the head of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, the Vatican’s Apostolic Nuncio in India and the Vatican itself — in the past two years, none of them felt the need of taking even a cursory look at what she said. With rock-solid determination and with the support of her family which has gifted the church some other priests and nuns from among them, she took her battle to the legal realm by lodging a complaint against Bishop Mulakkal with police. A month has passed since she lodged that complaint but police have not so far even bothered to question the Bishop despite the plethora of evidence and witness statements they have collected against him.
What is even more appalling is the way the Bishop has been trying to silence the nun. He accused her of making a false complaint against him. He alleged that the nun had been threatening him for quite some time to trap him in a sex scandal as an act of revenge for taking disciplinary action against her over a woman’s complaint that the nun had sexual relationship with complainant’s husband. Again, the top church leadership’s eagerness to protect the Bishop or to trivialise the nun’s cause became evident from how Cardinal Mar Alencherry allegedly lied when the Press and police asked him about the complaint he had received from the nun. He claimed she had met him but had not complained to him about the rape. And when a recording of a phone conversation between him and the nun came out in the media showing that she had indeed taken her complaint to him, the church leadership came up with some strange denials. The latest we hear of the affair is that the Bishop has offered the nun Rs 5 crore hush money and a position of her choice in the congregation if she withdraws rape complaint against him.
The Kerala Catholic Church has witnessed several sex abuse scandals involving priests in the recent years. Trial is set to start in the sex abuse case involving Fr Robin Vadakkumchery (47) of the Mananthavady Diocese, who had raped and impregnated a 16-year-old girl of his parish. In December 2016, a court awarded double life imprisonment to 42-year-old Fr Edwin Figarez, a parish priest of the latin Catholic Church, for raping a 14-year-old Class IX student at the parsonage of his church at Puthenvelikkara in Ernakulam district. Fr James Thekkemuriyil, rector of a seminary in Kannur district, was arrested in October 2016 for sexually assaulting a 21-year-old seminarian. Fr Raju Kokkan (44), a parish priest belonging to the Thrissur Archdiocese of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, was arrested in May 2014 for sexually abusing a minor at the parsonage of his church.
However, the rot of moral decadence in the church is not confined to the Catholic Church. The sex abuse charges against four priests of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church are even more disgusting because of the simple reason that they had misused one of the most important and sacred religious practices — confession — for sexually exploiting a young woman and one of them had even allegedly made her pay for the bed he rented to rape her on. The case of serial rapes of the woman by the priests whom the faithful consider as deputies of God prompted the National Commission for Women to recommend abolition of the practice of confession in churches in the context of its alleged misuse by the very same “holy” people, who are duty-bound to carry the confession secrets to the grave, for blackmailing for the purpose of sexual gratification. Instead of considering the NCW proposal as a pointer at the need of introspection and self-criticism, the church leadership is quick to raise cries of protest against the commission by alleging that the recommendation was part of a larger conspiracy against Christians.
The woman’s ordeal in the hands of the priests had started two decades ago when she was just 17. Priest Fr Abraham Varghese, a neighbour, abused her sexually several times in 1999 promising to marry her. He married another woman but continued to exploit her even after her marriage by threatening to reveal the relationship to her husband. The second priest, Fr Job Mathew, before whom she revealed this secret in her confession just before the baptism of her son, raped her by threatening to disclose the secret. The third priest, Fr Johnson V Mathew, who was an old friend, made lustful advances at her after she confided in him the ordeal she had gone through under Fr Abraham and Fr Job. The woman had told Fr Jaise K George of the Delhi Diocese about her experiences in a counseling session but instead of trying to provide peace of mind to her, he raped her at a luxury hotel in Kochi and even made her pay the hotel bills. Fr Job and Fr Johnson have been arrested and granted bail while the Kerala Police’s Crime Branch is waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision on the anticipatory bail pleas of Fr Abraham and Fr Jaise for making its next move.
Though the leadership of churches generally has always tried to protect clergymen accused of crimes of lust in the name of the need to safeguard the unity and sacredness of the religious edifice, there have been priests like Fr Paul Thelekkat, former spokesperson of the Syro-Malabar Church, who argue that each such instance should be considered as occasion for introspection, self-criticism and correction. Also, it is quite shocking to note the mysterious silence of the women’s rights organisations, including the pro-CPI(M) All India Democratic Women’s Association — which take to the streets and issue fiery statements whenever a gender offence takes place in society — and political parties in Kerala on sexual crimes involving church personalities. Even the State Women’s Commission headed by a central committee member of the CPI(M) is facing the charge of not taking up seriously the issues pertaining to the rape of the young woman by Orthodox priests and of the nun by the Jalandhar Bishop.
(The writer is Kochi-based Special Correspondent, The Pioneer)