By: Klinsa Kurien, Bureau Chief, ICN-Kerala
Of late, women in India are going through very tough times with the ever- increasing rate in incidents of rape. Not only is it perpetrated on young unmarried girls but it is equally being committed on married women too.
Priests are believed to be the direct advocates of God’s words and actions on earth. They are supposed to live a very pious and committed life, guiding ordinary people as us,along the right path. They, thus should not give in to temptations of the earthly kind. In Christianity there is a sacrament called ‘confession’ which means to narrate one’s wrong doings to a priest in a one-to-one manner without anyone else being present.
In turn, the Priest prays for the person and helps him/ her seek divine mercy for the particular sin. A psychological cleansing of the mind is aimed at. But in a recent incident,when a woman confessed to her parish priest about another priest sexually harassing her ever since she was a teenager, the priest started taking advantage of her and enforcing himself upon her. What was even worse, a whole network of five priests ganged up against her to sexually assault and threaten her with dire consequences if she dared to reveal this to her husband.
As though that was not enough, another priest took her to a hotel and abused her sexually and verbally. She went through hell. Not able to muster enough courage to tell her husband, she suffered silently.However, one fine day he found bills worth nine thousand rupees swiped in his wife’s account for a five star hotel’s stay and he grew suspicious. That was when all the skeletons came out of her cupboard. Shattered and heartbroken, her husband has been waiting at the doors of justice to this day, and this has become not only a personal and a societal problem but also a massive blow to the church.
The leaders of the church on one hand cannot deny the crime and the criminal and on the other it raises a big hue and cry as to whether the church would have a bleak future.
The church is in a dilemma whether to accept or deny the crime. If justice has to be done, then the Priests would be stripped of their priesthood. This is the demand of the victim’s husband. The Church has already been dismissed from their Priestly duties.
The words assault, lust, rape, pleasure are the most commonly read ones in the newspapers, magazines and social media these days. These have become words of common parlance in our vocabulary. The aspects of Values, Love and respect seem to have been lost and forgotten.
An imprint on the T-Shirt of a youngster read, “Do not go To India, It is the Rape Capital of the World”. I could not but hang my head in shame.
As a woman, I cannot hold my head high until these holy men (so- called) are not hanged by the noose. For that will surely be a new beginning! And no holy man would dare commit unholy deeds. A thing of beauty is a joy forever says John Keats. Let us all preserve women’s beauty!
