INDIA
The News Minute
The convenient excuse that the church hands out each time such an assault comes out in the open is this – “Not all priests are like that.”
Dhanya Rajendran
Sunday, March 05, 2017
I believe in God. In those low-points of my career or in my personal life, for one fleeting moment I look up to God and pray that everything gets alright. I believe in prayer.
But no amount of religiosity, spirituality or faith in God can get anyone to defend or justify an act as sickening and predatory as a Christian priest getting a 16-year-old girl pregnant, and then covering it up. And yet, this is exactly what the Church in Kerala is doing. Worse, many connected with the priest directly or indirectly are openly blaming the child.
Here are those reprehensible lines from Sunday Shalom, a magazine supported by the Catholic Sabha in Kerala, which would get anyone to seethe in anger.
“Here, the girl is above the age of 15. Let me tell you this, as I consider you like my daughter – you are also at fault. Before the Lord, it is you who will have to answer first. Daughter, why did you forget who a priest is? He has a human body and has temptations. He may have forgotten his position for a few seconds, my child who has taken the Holy Communion, why didn’t you stop or correct him?”
The girl the article blames is the 16-year-old who recently delivered a child at a hospital in Kannur. After an attempt to cover-up by the girl’s family, the priest who had allegedly raped her and impregnated her was arrested.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.