INDIA
Feminism in India
The latest incident that has rocked the Catholic Church and its faithful followers is the repeated rape of a minor girl by the vicar of a local church at Kottiyoor in Kannur District, Kerala. He was the manager of the school in which the girl attended classes until February 6th, a day before she gave birth to a baby boy.
This is not the first time that a priest had misused his powers and indulged in an act that priesthood forbids. A long and notorious history of Catholic priests involved in sex crimes tells us that the preachy Church has a rotten history of burying dirty secrets allowing systemic gender violence to mushroom in its backyard.
What was bizarre was the concerted effort by the Church to cover up the crime, until the Kerala police carried out an intensive investigation. They arrested the accused priest and seven others including five nuns and the doctor of the church-run hospital where the girl gave birth to the child, who were on the run. The accused were picked up on February 7th and booked under non-bailable warrants. The police should be applauded for being swift and efficient but what breaks the heart of faithful Christians like me is that the onus of the sexual crime is being put on the minor child. The Church conveniently retorted to victim-blaming rather than accepting the need to clean up the rot in the system.
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