KURAVILANGAD (INDIA)
Los Angeles Times
October 5, 2018
By Shashank Bengali
For two years the nun said nothing, quietly dreading the nights that the stocky, bearded Catholic bishop would spend at her small convent in the southern Indian hills.
Early last year she confided in another member of her congregation: “The bishop is compelling me to lay with him.”
Soon afterward, the nun reported to church leaders that the cleric, Franco Mulakkal, had raped her 13 times between 2014 and 2016. When the leaders failed to act and the bishop filed police reports in an apparent bid to silence her, she went to authorities in June.
The investigation might have stalled – as so many sexual assault cases tend to do in India, particularly when they involve the church – were it not for the accuser’s fellow nuns, who led an unprecedented public protest that has sharply divided the country’s 20 million Catholics.
After a two-week sit-in that drew thousands of supporters, police in the southern state of Kerala arrested the 54-year-old bishop last month, making him the first high-ranking Indian clergyman to face charges of sexual misconduct. On Wednesday, a court denied the bishop bail, ruling that the evidence against him was credible.
“It’s a watershed in the history of the Indian church,” said Jose Kavi, editor of Matters India, a website that covers religious issues.
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