WASHINGTON (DC)
PBS News Hour
February 7, 2019
Pope Francis is publicly acknowledging for the first time that clergymen have sexually abused nuns. Private reports that were sent to top Vatican officials, but not publicly reported on until much later, indicate the abuse goes as far back as the 1990s. John Yang speaks to Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield about why it took so long for the accusations to come to light.
Amna Nawaz:
Pope Francis broke his silence on Wednesday, acknowledging for the first time that clergymen have sexually abused nuns.
John Yang has more on the story
John Yang:
Amna, for decades, the persistent allegations of sexual abuse of nuns and religious women by Roman Catholic priests and bishops have been overshadowed by other scandals in the church.
Now decades of silence are ending. Last year, a bishop in India was arrested after a nun told police he had repeatedly raped her between 2014 and 2016. Many priests celebrated when the bishop was released on bail. He faces trail later this year.
This week, for the first time, Pope Francis addressed the issue as he returned to Rome from the United Arab Emirates.
Pope Francis:
It’s not something that everyone does, but there have been priests and even bishops who have done this. And I think it is still taking place because it is not as though the moment you become aware of something, it goes away.
The thing continues, and we have been working on this for some time. We have suspended a few clerics and sent some away over this.
John Yang:
The pope was responding to a question from Associated Press Vatican correspondent Nicole Winfield, who joins us now from Rome.
Nicole, thanks so much for being with us.
You published an investigation last summer that documented abuse going back decades and spreading across at least four continents. Why has it taken so long for this silence to break and for this to surface?
Nicole Winfield:
The first public reports were in 2001. The National Catholic Reporter did a groundbreaking report and provided documentation that had been given to the Vatican a decade before about the situation in Africa.
So, I took that as a starting point and decided that, with the reckoning that was going on in the United States, that it was a time to really look at what was going on around the world as far as the religious sisters were concerned.
And, indeed, we found that really nothing had changed.
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