By Matters India Reporter
Kochi: An expelled Catholic nun suffered a setback July 14 when the Kerala High Court refused to entertain her plea for protection against eviction from the convent where she currently stays.
Lucy Kalappura was in August 2019 expelled from the Franciscan Clarist Congregation. The Vatican rejected her appeal against dismissal three times that prompted the congregation to order her to vacate the convent in Kerala’s Wayanad district.
“Do not throw me out on the street. I am a practicing nun for 39 years. I do not have anywhere else to go. It is important for me to stay at the convent to continue my position as a nun,” Kalapura told the court as she broke down.
The 56-year-old retired schoolteacher argued her case in person. Earlier, her lawyer withdrew from the case as she does not have enough money to pay the fee.
Kalapura also pleaded before the court, “I am a woman; a nun fighting for justice. It is important for my nunship that I continue in the convent.”
A single bench of Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan, who heard the nun, said the high court’s last year’s order of police protection cannot continue any longer if she intends to continue at the convent.
The judge said if she continues to stay at the convent her conflicts with the staff or authorities there will continue. The congregation had accused her of indiscipline.
“This is for your own safety. You have made serious allegations against the vicar. You have admitted yourself that you are subjected to ill-treatment… It is better to move out. We can give you protection,” the judge added.
Kalapura told the court that she has challenged the eviction order in a civil court and that she wishes to continue staying at the convent until that case is decided. She said the court may withdraw the police protection granted to her, but she should be allowed to stay at the convent as she has no other place to go.
The nun also said that while she had the police protection she had confidence to venture out and whenever she had problems with the convent authorities. The police protecting her had come to her rescue when the convent authorities shut her out of the kitchen or dining area.
The court, however, said the only plea before it was for police protection and it was willing to grant the same as long as she is not staying at the convent.
The convent authorities, during the brief hearing, said the nunnery has its discipline but Sister Kalapura was not willing to follow it.
They also alleged that Sister Kalapura returned to the convent at varying hours in the night which was not permissible.
The convent also pointed out that the civil court’s order granting her protection from arrest is no longer in force as it has expired.
In June, the Vatican had rejected Sister Kalapura’s third appeal of against the decision of the congregation to expel her for “failing” to provide an explanation for her lifestyle, which allegedly violated church rules.
The congregation expelled Sister Kalapura in August 2019 after she joined a protest by members of the Missionaries of Jesus Congregation seeking the arrest of Bishop Franco Mulakkal, accused of raping a nun.
The congregation, in its notice, had termed as “grave violations” Sister Kalapura possessing a driving license, buying a car, taking a loan for it and publishing a book and spending money without the permission and knowledge of her superiors. The Vatican had ratified the decision.
The nun, however, had denied the charges leveled against, saying many of them were a “deliberate attempt to paint her in bad light.”
The congregation has argued that her continued stay at the convent and presence of police was troubling others at the convent.
In her book titled Karthavinte Namathil (In the name of Christ), she alleged sexual abuse and assaults in convents and seminaries. She called for institutional reforms to curb this.
She also alleged in the book that she also had faced sexual assault attempts at least four times and said many nuns easily succumb to intimidation.
The church has rejected the charges.
She is still wedded to Jesus and not to self proclaimed alter-ego of Jesus, the priestly clan. She may have violated internal code of conduct but she has not forfeited her fundamental rights available to any citizen. In fact the undertaking that all nuns sign off can be termed as invalid ab initio as they seem to be in opposition with our Constitution. The law is that no individual can contract into an agreement in violation of the Constitution. If she has to leave it has to be with sufficient alimony which has to be paid by the Church as it is they that do the throwing out and not Jesus.
In the context of Sr Lucy arguing her case (as her appointed advocate did not turn up), Rev. Valson Thampu (former Principal of St Stephen’s College, New Delhi) wrote a very clinical article in the Indian Express of 16th July. Excerpts from his article are reproduced below:
QUOTE
Isn’t a nun also a citizen of India, entitled to personal freedom and justice? Or, is she only a religious slave? Can an Indian citizen be punished for writing poems, publishing books, learning driving or supporting struggles for justice? Can the Indian court disown her, if she is? Can laws enunciated from Rome override the Indian Constitution? Should religious laws enjoy exclusion from the ambit of the Constitution of India?
Though slavery is abolished in theory, servitude survives in innumerable pockets. A glaring instance is that of nuns. None less than Pope Francis said a couple of years ago that thousands of Catholic nuns live in sexual slavery under the umbrella of the church. They endure their privation meekly because they know how impossible it is to struggle and secure justice for them. While Christendom as a whole has turned a deaf ear to the anguish of the Pope, a lone nun is waging an unheard-of battle to ensure that this inhuman condition is challenged.
Young, naïve girls are lured into convent life, when they are in no position to know what they are getting into. Most of them hail from poor and large families. Poverty, aggravated further by unsustainable family size, sustained by the church’s objection to family planning, drives girls to convents. To poor Catholic families languishing in insignificance, having nuns in their ranks serves as the high point of parochial vanity.
Her expulsion from the convent is clearly a punishment for expressing solidarity with the victim in the Bishop Franco Mulakkal rape case. As a nun, should she have no freedom of conscience to demand justice for an outraged fellow nun? Consider again. Sister Lucy worked as a high school mathematics teacher for 30 years. Her salary income was appropriated by the convent. Now, in her retirement, should she be thrown out of the convent, and onto the streets, without a rupee in compensation or financial support? That is what the canon law says. Why such a heartless law? Clearly it is meant to make it impossible for the frustrated nuns to exit convents. Why is this necessary? Well, because, if it becomes financially viable to leave the convent, thousands of nuns would. This would be not only a huge economic blow but also a setback for the institution of priestly celibacy in the church. The liberation of long-oppressed nuns, the religious sex-slaves as Pope Francis describes them, is the last thing the church will brook. It sees Sister Lucy’s struggle in this light. Hence the eagerness to crush her under its iron heels.
The least that the court could have done was to maintain, together with the stand it has taken, that the convent has a duty to give back to the nun her lifetime’s earnings. Anything short of this is tantamount to robbery by other means. A nun works all her active life and, at the end of it, she is cast away without a rupee! Surely, this falls short even of the crudest idea of justice in a civilised society.
Perhaps, the time has come to address the need to legislate a common civil code so that the indefensibility of exclusive religious rights encroaching on the domain of civil and constitutional rights is firmly established.
UNQUOTE
The Indian Catholic Church, by hoodwinking the Vatican, has carried out another Crucifixion. First through its studied silence, it allowed Fr Stan to be crucified. Now Sr Lucy (by opening the pandora’s box she has become a real threat to the Church establishment). The Church even bought off the lawyers who were supposed to argue for her. No lawyers turned up for her.
Then the Church condones the heinous crimes of Bishops (?) Franco Mulakkal, K.A. Williams and their ilks. Either the Church is wearing blinkers or it is trying to put wool over other people’s eyes. Justice is the last word in the dictionary of the Indian Catholic Church.
If she doesn’t want to obey the Religious rules, why should she want to benefit from her Congratulation?
Lucy Kalappura sounds like a wayward nun with perverse behaviour. She can be compared to a son or daughter of a family who does not want to obey the mother and father, who leads a different lifestyle and who argues for freedom to spend his salary on vehicles and dogs ,who wants to go from and return home according to his whims. Imagine the plight of a loving mother and father.
This is neither a woman’s issue nor a miscarriage of justice. It’s a matter of internal discipline and basic human behaviour.
The court judgement seems fair enough. As a government school pensioner she is like any other employee. Once you complete your service you have to vacate the premises.
She cannot continue as a member of the congregation if she is unwilling to abide by its rules.
As I said earlier a divorcee cannot continue to share the bed and breakfast.