Vatican clarifies ‘sexual slavery’ comments by Pope

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Wednesday clarified comments by Pope Francis about a case of what he called “sexual slavery” within a French congregation of nuns, saying he was referring to an abuse of power that was reflected in instances of sexual abuse.

Francis cited the case when responding to a question about the sexual abuse of nuns by clergy during a press conference Tuesday returning home from the United Arab Emirates. It was his first public acknowledgment of the problem of priests and bishops sexually abusing nuns. He stressed that the Vatican had been confronting the issue for some time and vowed to do more.

Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said Wednesday Francis “spoke of ‘sexual slavery’ to mean ‘manipulation’ or a type of abuse of power that is reflected in a sexual abuse.”

The Community of St. Jean admitted in 2013 that its late founder had behaved “in ways that went against chastity” with women in the order, according to the French Catholic newspaper La Croix. The Vatican ultimately dissolved an offshoot of the congregation.

The issue has come to the fore amid the Catholic Church’s overall reckoning with the sexual abuse of minors and the #MeTooinspired acknowledgement that adults can be victims of abuse whenever there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. In the past year, the various media have reported on cases of abused nuns in India, Africa, Europe and South America.

In November, the organization representing all the world’s female Catholic religious orders, the International Union of Superiors General, publicly denounced the “culture of silence and secrecy” that prevented nuns from speaking out.