In a big embarrassment for Kerala-based Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and its head Cardinal Mar George Alencherry, who is already facing the charge of involvement in a multi-crore rupee land scam, a complaint has been lodged with the police seeking action against him for allegedly failing to act on a senior nun’s complaint that the Bishop of a Catholic diocese had abused her sexually several times.
At the same time, the police probing the case decided to question Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the latin Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar who is facing the charge of sexually abusing the nun. K Subhash, Dy SP, Vaikom, Kottayam who is in charge of the investigation, told newsmen on Sunday that the probe team would visit Jalandhar to question the Bishop.
The police said that the nun, during the recording of her statement, confirmed that she had submitted a complaint against the Bishop to the Church leadership. According to the nun, she had approached the police after the Church failed to take action on the plea she had submitted to the Cardinal. She also reiterated that she stood firm in her charge against the Bishop.
In the complaint lodged with the Inspector General of Police (Ernakulam Range), complainant John Jacob of Kochi reportedly sought initiation of a case against the Cardinal for covering up the nun’s complaint, in which she accused the Bishop of sexually abusing her, and trying to settle the issue within the Church without informing the police.
The nun had lodged the complaint with Mar Alencherry in August last year. However, the Cardinal, who is currently in Rome, is yet to confirm the veracity of the nun’s claim. According to reports, the Papal office in The Vatican has already sought a report on the sex scandal from its envoy in India.
“If the authorities had known of the rape issue in time, the issue wouldn’t have reached this stage,” said John Jacob. “It was the Cardinal’s responsibility to inform the authorities after he came to know of the matter. The police should register a case against him if he had tried to keep the matter hidden,” he added.
Sources in the Syro-Malabar Church said the nun should have complained to the representative of The Vatican in India and not to Mar Alencherry as the Bishop belonged to a latin Catholic diocese. But they agreed that the Cardinal had the responsibility to report the matter to the authorities if he had come to know of it considering the gravity of the alleged crime.
According to the nun, the Bishop had sexually abused her 13 times in two years since May, 2014. He had allegedly raped her for the first time in a guest house affiliated to her convent at Kuravilangad, Kottayam on May 5, 2014 when he had reached there on a visit to Kerala from Jalandhar.
The nun had approached the Cardinal allegedly after the torture became unbearable but she was forced to petition the police when the Church leadership failed to take any action. However, the Bishop has denied all the charges. The police have also registered a case against the nun on the basis of the Bishop’s complaint.
Bishop Mulakkal claims that the nun had started threatening him to trap him in sex scandal after steps were initiated to take action against her following a complaint from a woman that “this sister had immoral relationship with her husband”. He also said that the nun’s relatives had threatened to kill him whenever he reached Kuravilangad.
Meanwhile, the scandal and the senior clergy’s response to it have triggered chaos in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church as well as among the latin Catholics. Expressing concern over such incidents, former Syro-Malabar Church spokesman Fr Paul Thelekkatt said that the legal authorities should have been informed of it.
As per reports, Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), the forum of latin Catholic Bishops in India, has submitted a report on the issue to The Vatican’s envoy in the country. leaders of the latin Catholic laity in Kerala have sent letters to the CCBI and The Vatican’s envoy seeking suspension of Bishop Mulakkal from his position till the investigations are over.
The allegation against the Cardinal has caused huge embarrassment for the Syro-Malabar Church which is already beleaguered by a multi-crore rupee land scam involving the Cardinal in its Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese, of which he is the Major Archbishop. The scam had forced Vatican to appoint a new apostolic administrator for the Archdiocese.