The belated arrest of Franco Mulakkal, a Catholic Bishop in charge of the Jalandhar diocese, last week for allegedly raping a nun is a significant event in the history of the church and the country for five key reasons.

First, Mulakkal’s arrest clearly shows not all religious leaders can wield their clout to commit heinous crimes and roam scot-free — thanks to a wave of protest from a vigilant civil society and, mainly, from groups of brave nuns who decided to come out in protest against the Kerala government’s apathy towards arresting the influential priest and in support of the victim, a nun who belonged to a congregation the high priest patronised.

Next, considering that the Catholic church in particular and Christian clergy in general has been facing charges of sexual assault and abuse in India and abroad, like several other religious sects, the arrest of Mulakkal by the Kerala police will surely offer some much-needed morale boost to the abused to come out of hiding and call a spade a spade. According to a Kerala police remand report, a medical examination had confirmed that the nun was sexually abused and the bishop had exploited his authority.

Third, the event offers the church a clear and present opportunity to weed out the bad elements in its workforce and introduce measures to make its systems more transparent and democratic. Time and again, several theologians and legal experts have pointed out that the opaque and feudal ways of the church — practised even in an era when ideals of participatory democracy and decision-making have shaken foundations of old-world governance systems and influenced some of the most conservative enterprises and institutions — have to be mended in sync with the modern times so that the church could get closer to its herd and, importantly, the world around it.

Fourth, this obviously embarrassing episode will prompt the community of nuns to demand more autonomy from the churches they are attached to and bring about a reform mission to free themselves from the clutches of the clergy by empowering its members to speak out in times of abuse and assault rather than being silent sufferers. Incidents such as the yet-to-be-solved murder of Sister Abhaya, a young nun who was found dead in well in a Kottayam convent in 1992, and many other cases reported in the media and quickly hushed up for reasons alien to most devotees and other members of the church, show that the fraternity of nuns functions under extremely stressful conditions, in spite of the fact that their contributions to education, healthcare, social services and many other areas are well appreciated by the public and governments.

And, the fifth reason that makes Bishop Mulakkal’s arrest extremely significant is the way it has exposed the rotten elements in the Catholic community, illustrated by the way several members of the church have come up with thinly veiled, bizarre and distorted arguments backing the bishop (the country’s first bishop to be arrested on rape charges) and shielding the clergy. This shows liberal, free-thinking Christians have their job cut out, to keep their faith detached from their loyalty to the church and in that effort check all efforts to pull back Christianity to its inquisition era morals that will nullify all the progress and modernist values it has imbibed over the years.

Jinoy Jose PDeputy Editor

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