Vatican paper reveals nuns more in service to clergy than the Lord

TOO many nuns who do housework or other menial task for cardinals, bishops and local parishes are working under slave- like conditions, the Vatican’s official newspaper said.

The Osservatore Romano’s report comes in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which, starting from the movie indus- try in Hollywood, has turned into a global revolt against female harassment and mistreatment.

Some nuns get up at dawn to prepare breakfast for senior clergymen and only go to sleep “once they served dinner, tidied up the house, cleaned and ironed the laundry”, the Vatican paper said, quoting Sister Mary, a nun who has heard countless such stories.

“In this kind of ‘service’, the nuns have no fixed or regulated working hours, unlike secular (employees), and their pay is arbitrary, often very modest,” she added.

Another nun, Sister Paule, said nuns’ skills and aspirations were often ignored: “I have met nuns with a PhD in theology who have from one day to the next been sent to cook or do the washing up.

“Behind all this, unfortunately there is still the idea that women are worth less than men, and especially that a priest is worth everything while a nun is worth nothing in the Church.”

Pope Francis has vowed to give more space to women in the Catholic Church, and asked a committee to study the role of female assistant priests, or deacons, in early Christianity. But he has closed the door to female priests.

The Vatican paper changed the names of nuns it quoted for privacy reasons – dpa