‘Save my children from the clergy’ – such news is no more a surprise because such reports have now become anecdotes for every day in one or the other corner of India. Now in a criminal case of gang rape in Jharkhand’s Pegul district, the district court of Pegul convicted a Christian clergy and three others on Tuesday. On June 19, 2018, gang rape was done with five girls in Akri village of Khunti district. The five girls had gone to participate in the drama to spread awareness regarding government schemes. But these girls were kidnapped by the priest and later raped.

So far, the news which came were used to be mostly from the inner premises of Churches and Christian educational institutions, but now the lusty priests now have started hunting even in the outside world. In another way of saying we can say that in India nuns were being exploited within the church premises for decades. These problems of India’s nuns were ignored. Because even many Nuns have felt that exploitation is a very common thing. Some of them have spoken about this problem only if they are being ensured that their identity will be kept hidden.

But whatever is happening now is not good for the Indian society because, in the last few cases, it is seen that dressed in the white attires they are hunters in place of the priests who are described as the image of mercy and humanity. Because in May 2016 a girl was gang-raped and the girl got pregnant. This girl was raped by the priest, Robin Wadakummerril alias Matthew Wadakummerril, in St. Sebastian Church of Kottiyur. After this, in 2018, four priests of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Kerala had sexually exploited a 34-year-old married woman before the church by using confession made by her.

Two months later, a church priest- Bajinder Singh of Jalandhar district of Punjab, was arrested at Delhi International Airport after a complaint of rape from a woman. The rape incident was executed by this clergyman. Not only this, in 2017 a clergy was arrested in Patna on the charge of rape. Chandra Kumar, a clergy of Patna City church, was accused of raping two women. This priest Chandra Kumar used to force women to change their religion and later exploited them. Such two women, who had been made converted by him and exploited for six months. Prior to this, Raju Kokkan, the clergy of St. Paul’s Church in Trichur, Kerala, was arrested in the year 2014 in the rape case of a 9-year-old girl.

In addition, in the year 2018, the Pokso Court, Bokaro sentenced the pastor Suleiman Topno to three years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of 20 thousand rupees for attempting to commit rape. In another episode, a few times back a nun said in a letter of 7 pages that Bishop Franco Mulkkal’s has done physical harassment to her between 2014 and 2016. She also told that to whom she went to seek help but no one came forward to help her. After this the victim Nun urged the Pope of Vatican City, who is the largest Christian clergy in the world, to impart justice by intervening in this matter. But what could the Pope do because a few days ago, the ‘Love Letters’ of Christendom’s highest clergy popped were found and the close relationships between a married woman Anna-Teresa, Tamanyica, and Pope John Paul II were disclosed as the newspaper headlines?

But despite this, pop is apologizing all over the world for his corrupt and exploits clergymen. Mostly it is believed that when a man’s heart is exhausted with worldly desires, he moves towards spirituality and stances. Then he moves towards leading a simple life wherein- anger, attachment, enjoyment, lust, etc. have no place, such examples are in plenty in India. But if we look inside the Christian churches then it seems as if their purpose of life is not to worship or serve society rather it just revolves around the sexual exploitation.

In the past days, in a BBC report, a woman named as the Geeta Shajan was requesting to the church in Kerala to keep her daughter safe because her younger daughter was studying to become a nun there. Geeta and her husband Shajan Varghese were standing at Vanchi Square in Kochi along with some people from Christian society who were protesting for the arrest of the rape accused bishop to a nun. That time Geeta said that as a mother I am very worried about the future of my daughter. At one time the church was considered to be the safest place, but it seems it is no more a safe place. Such black face of the clergy is exposed not only in India but also in many other countries of the world. In the German Catholic Church, 3677 cases of sexual harassment were registered between 1946 and 2014, in Australia between 1980 and 2015 about 4,500 people were sexually exploited and the complaint was lodged.

In fact, there are many issues related to sexual harassment to Nun in the country, including in Kerala, which has been suppressed by the churches for years. If researched properly, their truth can be brought in front of the country. Some time ago, the body of Nun ‘Sussan’, 55, was recovered from the well in Pathanpuram in Kollam district. If the persecution of women in this manner keeps going on inside the church, then the day is not far when in India, inside these conversion shop there will be only the clergy that can be found and no Nun will be there.

vinay arya