Vatican investigates after nuns report abuse by priests

The Vatican has launched an investigation into a small Chilean religious order of nuns after some sisters denounced sexual abuse at the hands of priests and mistreatment by their superiors, a turning point that shows the Holy See is now willing to investigate allegations of sexual violence against nuns. The scandal at the Institute of the Good Samaritan was revealed publicly in an investigative report by Chilean national television earlier this year at the height of outrage over how Chilean Catholic hierarchy covered up decades of sexual abuse of children by priests.

In the report, a half-dozen current and former nuns said sisters were thrown out of the order after they denounced the abuse to their superiors. The report followed the sisters as they testified before two Vatican investigators sent to Chile by Pope Francis to get to the bottom of the church-wide scandal there. In a statement, the Vatican embassy to Chile announced that an “apostolic visitation,” or investigation, had begun Wednesday in the institute. It said over the coming months the probe would take testimony from current and former sisters and those affiliated with the institute so the Vatican can understand the situation and make whatever changes are necessary.

The institute is located in the diocese of Talca, which since 1996 had been headed by Bishop Horacio del Carmen Valenzuela Abarca. Pope Francis removed Valenzuela as bishop in June as part of his cleanup of the Chilean hierarchy. Valenzuela had been one of the bishops trained by Chile’s most infamous predator priests, the Rev. Fernando Karadima.