KERALA (INDIA)
The New Indian Express
July 16, 2018
By Valson Thampu
Of late, the Kerala Christian community has been serially buffeted by tremors of priestly sexual aberrations. Where did the church fail?
The earliest crisis I remember the Catholic Church in Kerala has had to face was the conviction of one Fr. Benedict in the late ‘60s in what was then the most sensational murder case: the Mariakutty murder case. The church and the community pulled their weight behind the condemned. Benedict was later acquitted by the Kerala High Court, thanks to the legendary legal skills of A S R Chari, assisted by the best criminal lawyer of Kerala in those days, K T Thomas. On his acquittal, he was showcased as a scapegoat, and given a hero’s reception into social respectability.
Much water has flowed in the rivers of Kerala since then, and many monsoons of tears rained in the privacy of ruined lives. Of late, the Kerala Christian community has been serially buffeted by tremors of priestly sexual aberrations. A celibate priest impregnated a teenage girl. She gave birth. The matter was hushed up and, worse, her father was coerced to take the cross of the crime upon himself. Four priests, in a recent episode, are accused by a mother of two of raping her for years under blackmail. A Kerala bishop, billeted in Jalandhar, is now accused by a nun of sexually outraging her over a period of time and, further, of her failing to get justice from the church, despite persistent efforts. She, in turn, is being degraded by way of retaliation.
For years now, scandals of priest-perpetrated sexual abuses—especially involving paedophiles—have been tumbling out of ecclesial closets in diverse parts of the world. In an unprecedented turn of events, Pope Francis ordered 34 bishops of the Catholic Church in Chile to resign en masse, all of them having been found guilty of sexual crimes. To me, the greatest failure of the church in the past, until Pope Francis decided to catch the bull by its horns, is to have protected the predators under the mistaken notion that this safeguarded the church from infamy. In this, the church erred grievously.
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