This refers to the editorial, “Mea maxima culpa!” (March 8). Though the image of Kerala’s Catholic church has many a time been tarnished due to abominable and condemnable sex-crimes by priests, the church has always been trying to hush up such crimes instead of paving the way to give exemplary punishment to the guilty. In the present case, a priest repeatedly raped a student under his stewardship, and she gave birth to a child. Then, in a cover-up action, he made concerted efforts to gloss over the crime, in connivance with high-profile personalities like nuns and other priests and doctors. Subsequently, he even forced the poor victim’s father to admit that the latter was responsible for the pregnancy.
When radical changes are accepted and adopted in every sphere in society with the passage of time, it is high time the church also discarded its rigid stance on celibacy for priests, as suggested time and again by certain prominent bishops and social reformers. Otherwise, such crimes are bound to recur.