32 Nuns out of 50 Are Pregnant: Less Church Attendance, Waning Faith Linked to Sexual Assault Cover-ups

The Western churches have been complaining recently about the declining interest of believers in Christianity, as well as some of them renouncing the religion itself and considering themselves atheists.

Newspapers and Western analysts attribute this phenomenon to the “deviation” of the church and its priests from the core principles of the faith, along with their unethical conduct, particularly concerning churchgoers, including children and women.

 

Church Victims

One of the recent developments was revealed through an investigation conducted by the Spanish Catholic Church, which found that priests and affiliated personnel had committed “sexual assaults” against nearly a thousand victims over the span of eight decades. The Wall Street Journal reported on this on June 2, 2023.

According to the Spanish Conference of Catholic Bishops, at least 927 victims reported incidents of abuse and mistreatment by members of the church.

Other reasons mentioned by Western media for the declining interest in the Western Church include engaging in controversial issues that confuse believers, such as the actions of the Church of England.

The Anglican Church—which according to surveys, has experienced a significant decline in British attendance—entered a new controversy on February 10, 2023, when it announced a reconsideration of the gender of God, whether male or female, according to the American radio network.

They stated that they were considering ceasing the use of the pronoun “He” when referring to the divine after priests requested permission to use gender-neutral terms due to a debate about the identity of God, which sparked ridicule among the British public.

Previously, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, confirmed that Christianity is “all but eliminated” as a source of moral guidance in people’s lives or for the government in the United Kingdom.

He informed a conference of Catholic priests that the damage suffered by the church was partially due to the sexual scandals involving priests, leading to a growing “implicit atheism,” as reported by the BBC.

On March 25, 2023, Reuters confirmed that the Pope had to change accountability rules within the church after scandals of violations tarnished the reputation of the Vatican, implicating senior priests in fornication or covering up these pornographic practices.

They also mentioned that since April 30, 2023, the Vatican has begun to strengthen its efforts to combat violations within the church through additional regulations.

These measures were taken in response to the declining interest of Christians in the church and criticism accusing them of covering up crimes and protecting priests to avoid damaging the Vatican’s reputation.

The Vatican stated that church members are obligated to report cases of violence against women committed by religious men, as well as harassment of students.

Although the case of the most notorious assaults by priests on nuns has been discreetly revealed since 2018, as it represented the pinnacle of Western religious disasters, a documentary aired by German television channel Deutsche Welle on May 25, 2023, exposed further details about this scandal within the Catholic Church.

The documentary clarified that the sexual assaults on nuns by priests and clergy are carried out systematically amid silence and organizational tolerance from the church leadership.

It revealed that the misconduct of priests and clergy extended to engaging in fornication with nuns, followed by their subsequent expulsion from the church and convents under the pretext of being immoral after some of the victims dared to come forward and lodge complaints.

The documentary, which is filled with a significant amount of horrific crimes, included testimonies from assaulted nuns who were impregnated by priests and clergy, forced to have abortions, and subsequently expelled from the church for reporting the perpetrators.

One nun stated that the number of nuns impregnated by priests reached 32 out of 50 in a single monastery, indicating that she does not know how many others were assaulted but did not become pregnant.

However, the most terrifying aspect of this story is the priests’ claim that these crimes were “the will of the Lord,” using the same phrase they uttered while committing atrocities in Islamic countries during the Crusades, resulting in the bloodshed of thousands of children and women.

 

Scandal Details

The crime of priests engaging in sexual relations with nuns was revealed secretly, but it became a public topic when journalists confronted Pope Francis II with a question about it, leading to his acknowledgment of sexual assaults on nuns by priests and bishops in 2019.

On February 5, 2019, a journalist asked about reports of sexual assaults committed by Catholic clergy, resulting in the abortion of nuns’ pregnancies or the birth of children from the crimes of priests. Pope Francis responded to the question, admitting to the crimes.

He said yes, it is true, there are priests and even bishops who have done that, and he affirmed his commitment to end this problem within the Catholic Church. However, the practice of “sexual worship” within churches and monasteries did not stop, as revealed by the documentary aired by Deutsche Welle.

The Pope confirmed the use of women by some clergy as “sexual slaves,” as reported by The New York Times and North West American Radio on February 5, 2019. They stated that some priests had been suspended, but the crime continued, and the Pope acknowledged that as an ongoing issue.

The Vatican spokesperson, Alessandro Gisotti, confirmed that Francis was referring to a specific church, the Church of St. Joan of Arc in France, which was visited by the former Pope Benedict XVI after it was affected by sexual slavery by priests, according to his statement.

The New York Times confirmed on February 5, 2019, that the Pope was compelled to publicly acknowledge the problem for the first time after scandals of sexual assault on nuns and devout women by bishops surfaced, leading to abortions and births resulting from illicit relations.

It stated that cases of fornication between priests and nuns are not limited to Europe but are widespread in all churches and have appeared in countries such as India, Malawi, and others.

Nuns have also lodged complaints of rape and the consequent spread of AIDS among their ranks.

A previous investigation by the Associated Press on July 28, 2018, confirmed the existence of mistreatment of nuns in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America and reported that the Vatican had not adequately punished the perpetrators or supported the victims.

It was noted that nuns and devout women no longer go for what is known as “confession” with priests because their confessions were exploited to commit further sins by priests through sexual relationships that were concealed under the guise of “secrecy and obedience.”

A nun named Maura O’Donohue revealed that priests from a particular church had assaulted 30 nuns, impregnating some of them, and when they complained, they were expelled, according to The New York Times.

The Indian website Organiser also revealed on June 9, 2023, that an Indian priest had exploited nuns and Hindu women, engaging in not only fornication but also filming his pornographic acts with them and storing the pictures on his personal computer to watch periodically.

Experts have said that many priests in the church suffer from a medieval mentality and consider the priests who commit abuses against nuns as “victims of temptation,” holding the nuns responsible as “adults” and blaming them.

An expert in Church affairs told The New York Times that the assault often occurs during the spiritual guidance relationship, where the priest gradually prepares the victim over time, similar to cases of child sexual abuse.

He explained that “sexual services are demanded from nuns who financially depend on priests,” and the tradition of submission by women makes them vulnerable to mistreatment.

Western reports indicate that when some Christian women choose to enter the religious life, they commit to what is known as “chastity vows,” which means abstaining from any sexual contact as a means to get closer to God according to their belief.

But when they experience sexual assault from a religious man, many of them are left traumatized, leave the church, and renounce any belief in God.

 

Church Adaptation

Reuters revealed on March 25, 2023, that approximately 25 nuns accused the priest Marko Ivan Rupnik of various forms of sexual abuse against them, either when he was the spiritual director of the nun community in his hometown of Slovenia, or after he moved to Rome “to pursue his career as an artist.”

On May 19, 2023, American nuns accused a bishop from Texas of “absolute evil” after he closed their convent and accused the head nun of engaging in secret sexual relations with a priest, violating the vow of chastity, according to the Catholic News Agency.

They filed a lawsuit against Bishop Michael Fors Olson of the Diocese of Fort Worth after he ordered the confiscation of computers and phones and prohibited priests from celebrating Mass in their convent after accusing the prioress, Teresa Agnes Gerlach, of “sinning and violating the vow of chastity.”

On October 7, 2021, the Daily Beast website reported that the issue is not limited to sexual misconduct committed by priests with nuns but also includes cases where nuns entrusted with the care of students in church schools and convents engaged in inappropriate behavior with the students.

It was revealed that in a French convent, nuns raped girls using “crucifixes” or forced them to engage in sexual acts, and the church covered it up.

Due to the widespread nature of these scandals, Lucetta Scaraffia, a worker for the Vatican’s women’s magazine Women Church World, wrote an article in February 2019 exposing the actions of priests and clergy with nuns.

However, she told NBC News on March 26, 2019, that she and the entire editorial team were forced to resign due to increasing pressure from “Vatican media heads” after she and her colleagues condemned the sexual abuse of nuns by clergy.

Several developments have taken place in the Western Church in recent years, perhaps in an attempt to regain those who have distanced themselves from it and “adapt” to popular culture, even if it contradicts Christianity, which has encouraged priests to deviate.

Pope Francis changed his stance on homosexuality and paved the way for the “legitimization” of the Catholic Church’s acceptance of sexual deviation in January 2023.

This opened the door to the review of the Catholic Church’s rules regarding clerical celibacy, as reported by The Times on March 13, 2023, in an attempt to contain the “deviance of priests” and their oppressive practices towards nuns.

During an interview with the Argentine magazine, Infobae, on March 10, 2023, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his papacy, the Pope stated that there is no contradiction between a priest’s marriage and his religious service.

He believed that celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church is a “temporary prescription” and allowed priests to marry, even if it undermines a new aspect of priesthood.

The escalating crimes committed by priests and clergy have had discernible implications and consequences on the declining engagement with the church and the departure from Christianity, particularly in the Western world.

The Economist mentioned in a report on June 14, 2022, that there is abandonment and aversion to the church due to the crimes committed by clergy.

It confirmed that followers of the church no longer trust an institution that harbors offenders and called for the abolition of the celibacy requirement for clergy so that they can marry and not abuse nuns.

It emphasized that this would also slow down the pace of believers leaving the church, as some have already begun to abandon it.