INDIA
Huffington Post
There’s evidence of the Church’s complicity.
02/03/2017
G Pramod Kumar Contributing Editor, HuffPost India
The recent alleged rape of a minor girl by a vicar and what appears to be an attempted institutional cover up in Kerala has brought the Catholic Church under fire yet again. The vicar was an influential priest who had held important offices of power and the Church had apparently used its various apparatuses to protect him from the law.
This is not the first time that the Syro Malabar Church, the largest congregation of Catholics in the state, is at the centre of controversy. Over the years, many of its priests have been accused of various sexual offences and rights violations, and its institutions of cover-ups. Some have been punished by law, but many have managed to escape as the vicar in the latest rape case nearly did.
The main accused in the case is Father Robin Vadakkumchery, the priest of the St. Sebastian Church in the state’s northern district of Kannur, and the survivor, a 16-year-old girl from a poor family that belongs to the same parish. Allegedly, the priest had been sexually exploiting the girl for a long time and the family came to know about it only when the girl became pregnant. Following this, a cover-up plan seems to have been set in motion by the priest, backed by Church-run institutions.
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