Local View: Catholic Nuns Can Ignore the Past or Fill the Black Void with Light

By LaVerne Wagner
Duluth News Tribune
January 9, 2012

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/219206/

I read the Dec. 18 column about the 100th anniversary of the St. Scholastica Order of the Benedictines. Certainly the Sisters’ work has provided all of us with better health care, education and countless social services. Surely, their work continues to do so.

I personally have worked with Catholic nuns throughout the United States on disasters; they lead efforts to assist those who can’t fend for themselves. Mother Teresa inspired many of us to work with sick and poor and to trust that God will protect us and our health.

I struggle, however, with the dark past the sisters both at St. Scholastica and all over the world have in the failing to protect children. Nuns for many years were charged with the education and safety of children attending Catholic schools. As we now know, tens of thousands of children both in the U.S. and abroad were abused, molested and raped while under the care of nuns. These are facts, not allegations. Nuns have said many times they were silenced by their bishops and told to look the other way. Some nuns say they did not have the power to stop abuse.

As a victim of this abuse, I can tell you I have really tried to understand that predicament.

One nun even confided to me a priest was sexually harassing the sisters. The nuns complained to their Mother Superior, and she demanded the bishop remove the priest. The bishop did so immediately. So the nuns did act in that instance on their own behalf — but not for children? I so struggle with that.

My goal here is not to beat up the good Sisters. And I sincerely mean that. I lost a big part of my soul when my priest took my innocence from me. I have tried to replace that blackness, that hole, with positive light. I have done that through advocating for survivors like me and by being a listening ear to those who struggle.

I ask the Sisters not run from their past but to try to do something positive, something to prevent the heinous acts from ever being repeated.

There were 29 other children who were sexually molested by my priest. Over in Superior, numerous priests raped and molested countless children. Most attended Catholic school, under the guidance of nuns.

In Duluth, history includes a dark moment when we hung three innocent black men. We created a memorial to express and declare our shame and to make sure the injustice never happens again. I would ask the sisters to consider the same. The sisters can choose to ignore the injustice and the dark past — or they can fill that black void with light.