Current issue: Vol.1, No. 2 May 2001

Go to Content page Feedback Sexually Abused Religious Women in Africa: a different perspective By Elochukwu Uzukwu Three documents describing cases of religious women in Africa being sexually abused by priests and bishops have been exposed recently in the international press. The National Catholic Reporter, Zenit, La Repubblica, and Le Monde have all run stories on this issue. As an African priest, I feel compelled to react to these documents and the subsequent media coverage. But first, I will provide a brief overview of the material in question. In February 1994, Sr. Maura O'Donohue wrote a confidential report on HIV/AIDS, titled “Urgent Concerns for the Church in the Context of HIV/AIDS – Strictly Confidential”: The focus of the report is Africa, the narrative being placed in the overall context of a continent of HIV/AIDS. Confidential information was gathered from 1991 from unnamed sources on sexual abuse of women, with a particular focus on how religious women were being abused by priests and bishops. The testimonies were chilling! It makes depressing reading – it is certainly the African church on trial. It is true that other continents are mentioned, but the overall context is Africa; the naming of the other continents looks like an afterthought. One year later came the “Personal Memo from Sr. Maura O'Donohue MMM Meeting at SCR, Rome, 18 February 1995,” which revisited the 1994 report. AMECEA is named as a geographical area where an apostolic visitation may start. The need for formation of the clergy and religious in sexuality, spirituality etc., was stressed. But this is preceded by the judgment: “In many cultures it is impossible for a woman or adolescent to say "No" to a man, especially an older man, and particularly so to a priest. This results from the low status of women in these societies, their lack of formal education and the fact that priests are put on pedestals and are recognised as educated members of the society.” Another subsequent report dated November 20, 1998 has the following title: “The Problem of the Sexual Abuse of African Religious in Africa and in Rome, November 20, 1998: Paper for the Council of '16', Marie McDonald, MSOLA.” This report rehashes in detail allegations of sexual abuse of religious women in Africa and Rome by seminarians, priests and bishops. The report not only reproduced allegations in O'Donohue's document but also pontificates on the cultural reasons favouring the oppression and exploitation of women religious by the clergy. Impossible to say “no”? It is a totally untrue assessment of Africa to claim that “in many cultures it is impossible for a woman or adolescent to say "No" to a man, especially an older man, and particularly so to a priest.” I am surprised that Sr. O'Donohue made such a sweeping statement that used to be the stock-in-trade of travellers and tourists in search of exotic and folklorist corners of the world. Does Sr. O'Donohue think that Africa is a village, a country, or an ethnic nationality? In a continent of over 600,000,000 people with hundreds of ethnic nationalities one should, especially in the church, steer clear of the colonial relegation of the continent to the backyard of primitivism and un-freedom. All Africans do not have the same history, even though they may share certain salient traditions. But on the question of male-female relations, traditional Africa is not at all comparable to pre-industrial Europe. Not even in Africa's past is it a rule that “women would not oppose men,” especially when men want to take undue advantage of women. As a matter of fact, anthropological studies across Africa reveal that the “mother of all conflicts” is the male-female conflict. The male-female equation becomes the paradigm for balance and evenness within the individual and community – a symbol of growth or maturity. This conflict is entrenched as a value in most African communities by the practice of a radical exogamy. The wife (the woman) is a symbol of difference, stranger, undomesticated bush, mystical power and divination, as opposed to the husband (the man), who symbolises kindred, home, and ancestral oracular authority. As a community resolves conflicts represented in the male-female equation to reach harmony in tension, so also the individual is taken to be mature when the internal conflict - negotiating male-female dimensions of the self - reaches harmony in tension. African communities and kingdoms have intriguing histories of negotiating life in their contexts, expressed in the male-female paradigm. Male-female conflict is presented as the law of social relations and is foundational for all interpretation of ideal social relation as complementarity in tension or unity in tension. Examples include: the Bunyoro, Buganda [Uganda] and Asante [Ghana] kingdoms, where power sharing between men and women was socio-politically entrenched; the hierarchically conscious and patriarchal Bamileke [Cameroon], where women have to struggle for influence; the Nuer of Sudan, where the male-female division is so sharp to the point that male power is counterbalanced by female mystical (witchcraft) power; and the Bambara and Dogon of Mali, who mystify the origins of humanity interpreted in terms of male-female harmonious intermingling of souls. If Sr. O'Donohue observes African societies even today, she will note the easy male-female break-up at gatherings – each category fulfilling its role and checkmating the other's propensity to dominate. African women were never those flowers on the windowsills boosting male egos that western feminists fight today. It is true that there is inequality in the relationship between men and women but this is never allowed to go unchallenged. African women do not gain freedom by becoming men; rather, African women call for justice as the basis of a conflict-resolvable social contract. Amba Oduyoye in her study, “Daughters of Anowa, African Women and Patriarchy” [Maryknoll: Orbis, 1995] demonstrated how myths, legends and practices found among Africans show that women carry the burden of life and are not supposed to complain: “Women are expected to be the custodians of the positive qualities of the whole community.” Her call is not to scrap African culture but rather to ensure even-handedness in the relationship between men and women so that the positioning of “woman” as bearer of life and morality should be generalised and made applicable to all “men and women.” [pp. 25-35] Here is where men and women who struggle for liberation in fragile Africa should join hands to eliminate the oppression that dehumanises. And I think that all women and men should resist the exploitation of our religious women who are in the vanguard of this struggle for liberation in the church and African society. But it must be for the right reasons. Not that culturally women cannot say no to male elders and priests! Rape is rape anywhere! Immorality is immorality anywhere. Excessive clerical power in the Roman church, an autocratic rule at a level unknown in African traditions, should not be used to exploit co-workers in the difficult ministry of witness and caring. I think that the dynamic relational male-female paradigm in traditional African social engineering should be assumed and transformed in ministry so that rights be fully respected – unity in tension. Chastity and Africans It is curious that in Africa, where the “culture does not favour celibacy,” there is such an increasing number of priests and male and female religious working, living, and dying celibate. The McDonald report pontificates: “Celibacy/chastity is not a value in many countries. Marriage may not be an option in some countries for an educated young woman because the 'bride price' is too high. Religious life could provide an alternative choice but is there a real choice for a chaste celebate [sic] life?” It is curious that in Europe and America where the culture favours celibacy, there is such a vertiginous drop in the number of religious men and women. How does Marie McDonald want an African to understand her judgment reproduced with glee by La Repubblica and Zenit.org? One gets the message, reading through these reports, that “it is not like in our home,” where there is value for celibacy, women are respected, women receive just wages for work, Church structures are democratic, there is formation in theology, spirituality, and anatomy of sexuality, and so on. How may one judge such prejudicial pronouncements or hope to exorcise a mentality saturated with creeping racism? That is why these reports and judgments were printed and posted in Zenit, La Repubblica, Le Monde, and the National Catholic Reporter, without comment. Is it not irresponsible for a Catholic website to disseminate racist and untrue information about a continent, displaying deep-seated and in-eradicable prejudice that inspired Euro-American literature to 'invent' the image of the Black person current in the West since the unhappy days of slavery? How will the editors of Zenit or the National Catholic Reporter react if the unhappy and unsavoury cases of child abuse being aired in the European and American media are transmitted through an African website to create the impression that in European and American cultures children and minors do not say 'no' to parents, elders and priests, and that is why they are habitually abused; and therefore priests and religious, who are normally protected by a culture where celibacy is a value, find it difficult to resist the temptation to abuse children? Will it not be most uncharitable and unchristian to gloat over such problems? A deeply religious worldview Many may wonder why there is such an increase in vocations among female congregations in Africa and a net increase in foundations of female congregations. They do not wonder why there is such hospitality given to Christianity and Islam by the primal religions of Africa. They may not wonder why the primal religions of the Graeco-Roman world gave quick hospitality to Christianity as opposed to the more entrenched and impenetrable Asian religions. Despite the impact of secularisation, a religious view of the world remains a fundamental value of African cultures. Religious life lived in celibacy is a satisfying life – despite the tensions in religious-celibate life, as in all life. Whatever the reasons for the upsurge in vocations and in the expansion of Christianity in Africa, these reasons must be good for the African women and men who embrace Christianity and who embrace the priestly and religious life. My observation of the incredible energy, creativity, and generosity of Nigerian priests and male and female religious convince me that Christian religious life and priestly ministry contains something good for the human person and for the continent. African priests and women and men religious have proven their mettle in the five continents – especially in Europe and America – by the services they render to the universal Church. With patience, they quietly make their contribution to the dialogue of cultures working towards harmony in tension – the dynamic grains of the African view of social engineering. For women religious, evidence on the ground shows that, rather than being unpopular, celibacy is embraced as a truly satisfying challenge in life, as much as marriage. In a recent anthropological study, the late Joseph-Thérèse Agbsiere [Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary] painted a portrait of the 'authentic' Igbo woman. The Nigerian author, who chose a life of celibacy rather than the life of marriage that traditionally celebrates the peak of maturity as a person or as a woman, demonstrated that the traditional Igbo notions of womanhood are useful codes for transforming the world. To G. T. Basden's disputable comment [in 1921] that for the Igbo “celibacy is an impossible prospect,” she replied: “Such an interpretation stands in question in the light of a development – that is, the phenomenal growth … of the number of young Nigerian women who have embraced the religious life, a key aspect of which is 'celibacy'. Interestingly, this phenomenon is associated more with Igboland than with the rest of Nigeria” [Women In Igbo Life and Thought, Edited with a foreword by Shirely Ardner, London and New York: Routledge, 2000, p.94]. According to Agbasiere the woman is “'gift' to society, an ethical being who confers some status on man, one who is an upholder of morality” [p.8]. Therefore, being a nun did not deny her serenity and influence, honour and prestige that are the trademarks of the person and the root for the valuation of humans as persons as transmitted by Igbo cultural tradition. In Igbo and many African cultures, the woman is not a walkover. And it will be wrong to think that a woman is one who says yes all of the time to men and elders and priests. O'Donohue and McDonald, the National Catholic Reporter and Zenit.org should do well to consult African anthropologists and African women experts before making inaccurate statements that belittle African womanhood and African culture. This is the least one expects from responsible journalism. Our women religious must be protected from abuse, just as our children must be protected from abuse. But to propose cultural reasons for the abuse of women religious is certainly the racist around the corner. The marginalization of Africa and the racism directed against Africa and the Black race is deep-rooted in the Christian Church, and especially in the Roman Catholic Church. Christians have provided Biblical proofs for the inferiority of Africans; the Pope, his entourage, and Christian theologians supported the slave trade; religious congregations participated actively in the trade, making it their only source of revenue [such as the Jesuits in Angola]; no papal document condemned black slavery and the slave trade before its abolition by Britain; the image of the black person as commodity and beast of burden, and as an inferior animal was constructed during that period of Negrophobia; no Christian church or Catholic religious congregation condemned colonisation because it was good for Africa; the exploitation of the subsoil of Africa and the debt burden that are condemned today is hardly skin-deep because of the entrenched bias that nourishes the marginalization, exploitation and commodification of Africa and Africans. Why now? This brings me to the issue of why the “strictly confidential” reports submitted in 1994, 1995, and 1998 are being made public in March 2001. Is it because of the heat on priests and religious in Europe and America, so that Africa will get a bit of the action? Is it in readiness for more discriminatory actions against African clergy and religious in Europe and America? Who knows? In handing over “confidential” revelations to a sensationalist media, Sr. O'Donohue and her colleagues have succeeded in condemning the African clergy, religious men and women, and the African church to carry the additional burden of being targeted as a church led by rapists and abusers of female collaborators. They have corrupted justice and fairness by thinking it unnecessary to remind other parts of the world where religious women are abused – especially Europe and America – that there needs to be soul-searching all over the Church. Church structures should be reformed, based on the mass consultation and deliberation that characterise African assemblies so that one does not learn about these abuses from media houses that appear to take delight in sensationalising the foibles of others. Whatever the reasons for these unsavoury revelations, Africans must rally together; not only to react to the accusations – proven or unproven – but to recommit themselves to reconstructing the continent, and work for its liberation based on Africa's Christian historical past and our God-given wealth of a dynamic socio-traditional experience. Elochukwu Uzukwu, a Spiritan born in Nigeria 1945; lectures in Theology [Sacraments, Liturgy and Missiology] in Spiritan Intl. School of Theology Attakwu, Enugu Nigeria, at the Institute Catholique Paris; and Kimmage Mission Institute Dublin. [Publications - Worship as Body Language, Introduction to Christian Worship an African Orientation - Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 1997; A Listening Church - Autonomy and Communion in African Churches, Maryknoll, Orbis, 1996]. African Scribe is guest on PeaceLink web site