All four must undergo psychological treatment and training in gender discrimination, Judge Carolina Cáceres decreed.

Cáceres's breakthrough ruling found the accused had abused 20 cloistered of Discalced Carmelite nuns for over twenty years.

Although the archbishop and officials denied committing any violence, Cáceres saw their actions differently.

A group of the nuns had brought the case against the men to court.

The nuns cited a range of mistreatment. This included verbal insults, threats, humiliation and physical — although not sexual — assault.

They had told the court of instances of Cargnello grabbing, slapping and shaking women.

In one case, they said Cargnello squeezed a nun's lips to silence her. In another case, he pounced on a nun, striking her as he struggled to snatch a camera from her hands.

They also accused Cargello of borrowing their money without paying them back.

The judge described the instances as "physical and psychological gender violence".

"I conclude and affirm that the nuns have suffered acts of gender violence religiously, physically, psychologically and economically for more than 20 years" she said.

She ordered the verdict be conveyed to Pope Francis, himself an Argentinian.

Longstanding abuse

The Argentinian judge's ruling casts a spotlight on Catholic priests' and bishops' long-standing abuse of nuns.

The nuns' lawyer hailed the verdict as unprecedented in Argentina. It recognises the plaintiffs' plight and the deeper problem of gender discrimination.

"It shatters the ‘status quo' because it targets a person with a great deal of power" the nuns' lawyer says.

While other church scandals generally take centre stage, gender abuse cases are not isolated.

Bringing such cases into the open is attributed to nuns feeling emboldened by the #MeToo movement and its Church corollary, #NunsToo.

Appeal likely

The archbishop's lawyer claims the ruling is baseless and is planning to appeal.

Nonetheless, the archbishop will abide by the order to receive treatment and anti-discrimination training through a local NGO, his lawyer says.

He will do it "whether or not he agrees with its basis".

Hidden problem

In recent years, several prominent cases have emerged involving nuns, laywomen and consecrated women denouncing priests for their spiritual, psychological, physical or sexual abuse.

Their complaints have been largely unheard.

The Vatican has been deaf. Argentina's rigid all-male clerical hierarchy didn't seem to offer an option.

The nuns turned instead to the secular justice system.

A similar dynamic occurred when the clergy abuse of minors scandal first erupted decades ago. Then, as now, victims turned to secular courts because of inaction by church authorities.

Source

• APNews

Raised as a Jew, Stein was an atheist philosopher who converted to Catholicism in 1921 when she was 30. She became a Discalced Carmelite nun in 1938 and took the name Sr Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Pope John Paul II declared her a martyr in 1987 and canonised her in 1998. St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross is the co-patroness of Europe.

On Tuesday - her anniversary - Cardinal Michael Czerny joined with her Carmelite sisters and celebrated a Mass for St Teresa Benedicta near Auschwitz.

Like her, members of Czerny's family were also arrested and sent to concentration camps. Some were sent to Auschwitz.

Czerny's homily recounted St Teresa Benedicta's story and how it intersected with his maternal Czechoslovak family.

"With Edith Stein, I share Jewish origins, the Catholic faith and a vocation to religious life ..." he said.

Even when she considered herself an atheist, "her sensitive moral conscience and intellectual honesty led her to reject relativism and subjectivism".

Stein wrote that her "first encounter with the Cross" took place in 1917.

She was visiting a recently widowed friend who told her about her late husband's conversion and her own.

The friend explained that the peace she received at her baptism prevailed even during this time of loss.

Stein "was struck by the serenity that the woman maintained in spite of tragedy," Czerny said.

"No human force could account for or explain such peace," Stein later wrote.

"It was the moment when the light of Christ, Christ on the cross, shone."

In 1933, Stein wrote to Pope Pius XI urging him to speak out against all expressions of antisemitism.

It wasn't until 1998 the Church formally apologised for not taking more decisive action to challenge Nazism and the so-called ‘final solution' to the ‘Jewish problem'.

By the end of the war, Czerny's family was scattered or dead.

His grandmother and her children were considered Jewish as his grandmother was of Jewish descent. His grandfather refused to divorce his Jewish wife, so he was arrested too.

Both her grandmother and two uncles spent time at Auschwitz before being transferred elsewhere. Only his grandfather and mother survived.

Source

• America Magazine
• AP News

After the police raid in the northeastern province of Entre Rios, Argentina in late August, the two nuns confirmed their testimony, leading to the abbess, Mother Maria Isabel (Luisa Toledo is her given name) to be investigated and called to testify by a local court, on the grounds of unlawful privation of liberty.

Talking to a journalist but keeping her identity hidden, one of the former religious said that worse than the physical torture was the "psychological" abuse because, she claims, the mother superior made her believe she was responsible for the evils of the world.

The religious sisters who made the allegations claim they had to "escape" the cloister, which they had entered voluntarily, one in 1988 and the second ten years ago. They claimed they had been forced to torture themselves, using a cilice - a barbed chain typically worn around the upper thigh, which has a long tradition in the Catholic Church.

It's been used by many saints, including Mother Teresa, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Therese of Lisieux. It's currently used by members of some religious orders and movements such as Opus Dei.

Maria Isabel was supposed to testify late last week, but she had the flu, so her testimony was rescheduled for the upcoming days.

The 17 Carmelites who remain in the convent have denied any abuse against them. Earlier in the month, they published a video on Facebook which quickly became viral, through an account that was later deleted.

In it, they explained that they were happy "to be brides of Christ" and called the allegations of tortures "an invention."

Source

• Crux
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