WASINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service
February 15, 2019
One of Poland’s most senior nuns said priests must stop sexually molesting religious women, in line with efforts to improve treatment of women in the traditionally Catholic country.
“Sexual abuse of nuns by clergy has long been a problem in Poland — and it’s a very painful matter,” Ursuline Sister Jolanta Olech, secretary-general of the Warsaw-based Conference of Higher Superiors of Female Religious Orders, told Poland’s Catholic Information Agency, KAI.
Sister Olech told KAI on 14 February that no data had been collected on the abuse of nuns in her country. However, she added that she had been informed of “very painful” cases during 12 years as conference president and secretary-general, and she welcomed Pope Francis’ 5 February call for action against offending clergy.
“This isn’t the first time the issue has been raised, and we don’t know if it will change much — but it should show some people at least that the time for concealing this problem is over,” she said. “The cases I dealt with were reported to the superiors of the priests and monks concerned. But I don’t know what the results were, and the cases were never made public.”
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