The Cathnews
November 4, 2010
http://www.cathnewsindia.com/2010/11/04/former-nun’s-rape-allegation-a-case-of-extortion/
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Jesuit Father Joe Antony is the director of Culture and Communications Centre, Loyola College, Chennai. He also directs the India office of the Vatican Radio. The journalist-priest edits Jivan, the monthly magazine of the Jesuits in South Asia, and Dawn Books, a Catholic book club that publishes three books a year. He also edited The New Leader, a Catholic fortnightly published from Chennai, for 20 years, until December 2009.
In the following commentary Father Antony writes and explains about the case of a former nun accusing a Jesuit priest of raping her. The news received wide coverage in Indian media and some newspapers in Tamil Nadu carried it on their front page.
On Oct. 12, a former nun, Florence Mary, accused the Jesuit principal of the well-known St. Joseph's College, Trichirapalli, in Tamil Nadu, of rape.
She also accused three other Jesuits, including the provincial of the Madurai province, of threatening to kill her.
Accepting her complaints the local police filed cases against all the four Jesuit priests.
In a bid to explain what really happened, provincial Father M. Devadoss has written to the Tamil Nadu bishops and major superiors of Catholic Religious congregations in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.
In the Oct. 26 letter, the provincial narrates the sequence of events that led to the ex-nun filing cases against the priests.
The important points the Jesuit provincial makes are: 1. Mary's written and oral statements contradict on almost every crucial point. 2. She has made substantial additions, omissions and contradictions that "would strike at the root of the allegation found in her statements.
The provincial also points out that the nun in her Aug. 25 letter to St. Anne's superior general had accused Father Rajarathinam of a one-time consensual sex.
However in her Sept. 23 letter to the Jesuit provincial, Mary alleged the priest had forced sex with her.
Her complaint to the Trichy police on Oct. 12 alleged that the priest had serial sex with her from 2006 onward resulting in pregnancy in April 2008.
Secondly, during an internal inquiry in the Society of Jesus, "her relatives turned down the offer of obtaining the services of a third person, possibly, a woman religious skilled in counseling to meet Father Rajarathinam and Sister Florence together and resolve the deadlock - a clear accusation and an equally clear denial."
Another discrepancy is that in a meeting on Sept 29 in Madurai, Mary and her relatives demanded 6.1 million rupees (US$135,555) as "one time settlement."
The Jesuit provincial categorically stated that they would not yield to this extortion. "We have stuck to our position that service organizations like ours deal with public funds and should not divert them to buy silence, respectability, maintaining appearances etc," the provincial wrote.
It is after the Jesuits' refusal to yield to the demand for money that Mary went to the police alleging things that she never came up with earlier - that Father Rajarathinam drugged her and raped her and used the photograph he had taken during the act to demand sex many more times.
The three other Jesuits against whom she filed a separate complaint, alleging that they threatened to kill her and her family, were those who interacted with her and her relatives at the meeting when she demanded the 6.1-million rupee compensation.
Father Devadoss says the allegations against Father Rajarathinam are serious and if proved true, "it would be our bounden duty to take not only the sternest possible disciplinary action but also apply the relevant canonical strictures and sanctions against him."
However, the provincial regrets that neither any direct nor circumstantial evidence has been adduced so far in support of the allegations.
"Even the complainant's own letters are incongruous and carry versions which are self-contradictory," he adds.
The provincial also said he has meanwhile asked the accused priest to proceed on leave, pending the completion of the police investigation. He has also appointed Father A. Sebastian as the principal.
"Now that the Hon'ble Courts remain seized of the matter we have no other option except to leave it to the learned Judges to ask Sister Florence Mary to make up her mind on the exact nature of her accusation and substantiate it," the letter concludes.
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