On Wednesdays, the support group meets over Zoom. The members talk about their lives, their religious families and their old parochial schools. But mostly, they are there to talk about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Catholic nuns.
The topic deserves more attention, they say. The sexual abuse of children by Catholic sisters and nuns has been overshadowed by far more common reports of male clergy abuse. Women in religious orders have also been abuse victims — but they have been perpetrators too.
“We’ve heard so much about priests who abuse and so little about nuns who abuse that it’s time to restore the balance,” said the group’s founder, Mary Dispenza, herself a former nun, in a speech to abuse survivors last year.
Dispenza, who endured abuse from both a childhood priest and a nun in her former order, started the online support group five years ago with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. More victims had been contacting her in the wake of #MeToo, as they reassessed past sexual abuse. She has since seen a growing awareness of abusive nuns at former Catholic orphanages and Native American boarding schools.
Reminder that the “cool pope” doesn’t want this sort of crime reported to the police.
The cool Pope is transphobic and thinks Ukraine should surrender to Russia.
And yet, somehow the best pope in my lifetime. And I’m old.
APAB.
I’ve only been through 3, but I wouldn’t trust any of them as far as I could throw them to be good people.
I’ll take this one any day over the last one, he was Palpatine level scary
I’d take none of them personally.
I wasn’t offered that option, unfortunately
We weren’t offered any option.
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I wonder what goes on the minds of the abusers.
One bad day you decide you’re going to commit the rest of your life to God, and reach a compromise to avoid sex forever. Another day, much, much later, you begin having urges, and they get so strong that the idea of abusing a child passes through your mind. If your initial intention of dedicating the rest of your life to God has led you to this point, wouldn’t it be just truer to your initial vocation to renounce your vows so that you can have sex with consenting adults, rather than harming a child?
Then again, the Catholic Church treats abusers better than it treats resigned priests.
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Thanks a lot for the effort put in your message. It’s going to take me a while to process it all.
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Why don’t we ban the clergy from using public restrooms? And why do they seem so determined to smear transgender people as the real threat? Could there be some connection?
A lot of it is because males are way less likely to regret having sex at an early age than females.
People who like to ignore reality will try to focus on exceptions as though they are rules, but that’s just what they are: exceptions.
This is absolute bullshit and you haven’t even read the fucking article. The nuns did not exclusively abuse boys any more than the priests exclusively abused girls. And no, boys are not more likely to welcome their abuse. Fuck the fuck off with this toxic nonsense.
You cannot derive reality from inside your own head. Read more, spout less bullshit.
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There are definetly social pressures that make male victims of sexual assult less likely to come forward and speak out about their abuse – but is still abuse and many adult survivers have to deal with life long effects of that kind of trauma.
And its not an exception for CSA survivors to be upset about the abuse they suffered, regardless of gender. Idk where you got that opinion, but it seems super off to me.
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Yeah I don’t care if a child is fine that they were molested. If it’s wrong to do it to a girl it’s wrong to do it to a boy
