Why has no tangible action been taken against the Bishop Franco Mulakkal and Cardinal George Alencherry, who has been accused of a cover-up of a heinous crime? – Balbir Punj
While a part of the Christian clergy is busy pontificating on the falling moral and ethical values in the country, the Catholic Church itself has been in the news for the wrong reasons, both in India and abroad.
The Church in Kerala is in turmoil. A 44-year-old nun has lodged a complaint with the state police alleging that she was first sexually abused in 2014 by Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who summoned her to a convent in Kerala where he was on a visit, on the pretext of discussing an important matter. According to her, she was subsequently raped 12 times by the bishop in the following two years.
In the last week of June this year, the Kuravilangad police in Kottayam district had registered a case of rape and unnatural sex against the bishop. The nun has alleged that the bishop, a native of Thrissur, sexually exploited her at the Missionaries of Jesus house at Kuravilangad in Kottayam. As the Jalandhar bishop is the patron of the Missionaries of Jesus, he had easy access to the congregation’s house in Kuravilangad.
Why was there such a delay on the part of the nun in lodging a complaint? She told the police that she had informed superiors of the church last year. As there was no action, she approached the police. The Kuravilangad house of the congregation has six nuns—the victim among them—police said. “Apart from the complainant, four other nuns of the same house have given statements against the bishop,” a police official told a newspaper.
Some laypeople belonging to the Ernakulam archdiocese have fielded a complaint in Kochi demanding legal action against Cardinal George Alencherry, who according to reports, has allegedly tried to protect the accused and threatened the victim to take back her complaint.
The decision to summon the highly placed accused was taken after five nuns along with their supporters, including priests from other churches, held a sit-in outside the Kerala High Court under the banner of Joint Christian Council. But why has no tangible action been taken against the bishop and the cardinal, who has been accused of a cover-up of a heinous crime?
Flash back to 1998. Four nuns were raped in Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh. There was global uproar and Hindu organisations (read BJP and RSS) were accused by some of the ghastly crime. Many prominent Christian and so-called human rights activists started a tirade against the then NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
In the wake of this dastardly incident, “social activists” appealed to the US and the UK for sanctions against India and in the process maligned the country’s image the world over. Later on, many of the rapists were found to be Christians, mainly tribals who had been converted to Christianity. Soon after, Jhabua was history. But the damage was done.
The rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua, Jammu, and the rape of a 17-year-old girl in UP’s Unnao are two incidents that have shocked the nation in recent times. In the first case, a girl child was kidnapped on January 10 this year and her body was subsequently discovered near the village temple. The police promptly made some arrests; the local populace claimed there were gaping holes in the police theory and demanded a CBI inquiry. The plea for a CBI probe was termed as standing with the rapists.
In the Unnao case, the girl was raped on 4 June 2017. Two separate charge sheets, one by the CBI on 11 July 2018 naming Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh, and another on 13 July 2018 naming Sengar and his brother, three policemen and others for allegedly falsely implicating the father of Unnao rape survivor in an Arms Act case, were filed. The accused had a high status in the ruling dispensation, but this did not stop the police from taking action against them.
The Catholic Church “stood” with the rape victims of Kathua and Unnao. In a statement issued by the Archdiocese of Bombay, its spokesperson, Fr Nigel Barrett, urged the laity to speak up. He said, “Evil exists and perpetuates because good people are silent.” He said the Church has always stood in solidarity with victims of injustice. “Too often we are silent to the pain and suffering around us. Many people tend to think that if it does not affect me then it’s not my problem.”
In Thane, Bishop Allwyn D’Silva said, “Not just Catholics, people of all faiths are urged to come and raise their voice against the growing culture of intolerance and violence against women. The culprits must be brought to book and victims must receive speedy justice and compensation.”However, there is deafening silence on the part of all such votaries of ‘human dignity and moral values’ in the case of the Kerala nun. Where are the rent-a-cause activists who take to the streets at the slightest pretext? Why is there no public outrage against the tardy investigation in the Kerala nun case?
It is not only in India that the scourge of sex crimes has hit the Church. The situation at the global level is alarming. Thousands of cases of sexual exploitation, including the abuse of hapless children, by Church officials are being reported from dozens of countries all over the world. Is it not the time that the Church does some introspection, takes corrective measures and heeds its own words rather than pontificating to the rest of the society? – The New Indian Express, 20 September 2018
» Balbir Punj is a journalist and columnist and vice-president of the BJP.
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