By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, Dec 1, 2021: The Franciscan Immaculatine Sisters congregation says police and autopsy reports indicate suicide as the cause of one of its members’ death in the northern Indian state of Punjab.
Sister Mary Mercy was found hanging at 6 am on November 30 in the chapel of the congregation’s Sadiq convent in Faridkot, a district in Punjab, some 130 km southwest of Jalandhar diocesan headquarters.
A December 1 circular from Sister Maria Indira, the Italy-based congregation’s Indian delegate vicar, says her people in the Sadiq convent immediately informed the police, who came and investigated the death. Later an autopsy was done with the permission of the deceased nun’s parents, the circular clarifies.
“The police examination and the postmortem report have revealed the death as a case of suicide and ruled out anything unusual,” says the circular in Malayalam language. It promised all cooperation to the police further probe.
The circular also says the congregation would make all arrangement to take Sister Mercy’s mortal remains to her native place and busy in her parish cemetery, as mentioned in the 30-year-old nun’s suicide note. The note had asked pardon to all sisters in the congregation as well as her family members, the circular said.
Sister Mercy, native of St Andrew’s Parish of Arthunkal in Alappuzha district, joined the 140-year-old congregation in 2008 and pronounced her first vows on August 2, 2014. The congregation established its first house in Kerala in 1991.
A year after her vows, Sister Mercy was sent to the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. She was among four nuns sent on August 21, 2018, to open a convent in Faridkot. Along with social service she was doing her master’s course in social work. “She had gone home for vacation in May and on her returned started preparing for the final profession. She was planning to return to Kerala for the final profession,” the circular explained.
The delegate vicar described Sister Mercy as a quiet and service-minded person. “The untimely death of Sister Mercy has plunged all our houses into deep sorrow like her family members,” said Sister Indira, who is based at Eda Kochi in Kerala.
I have been repeatedly saying through these columns that there is need for a thorough psychological and sociological study of suicides among priests and nuns.
To begin with vocation promotion, nobody should be admitted to the seminary or novitiate before they complete 21 years of age, with a degree of emotional maturity.
It reminds me of the suicide of Regi Andrade a priest of Lucknow diocese. He wore his Mass vestments and hung himself over the altar using the tincture that is the cord used for tying the robes. He was protesting against being denied going to become a medical doctor. He wanted to spite his bishop.
If a nun commits suicide in the chapel she is sending out a strong message against her way of life that needs serious investigation.
Not so often. There are about 100000 Catholic nuns in India. They hail from our families with their own problems. Available data tells that suicide rate in India is 13 person per 100000 and female suicide rate is 2.3 times higher than the males. This is the 3rd suicide of a nun reported. This is neither to justify the situation nor to make light of the issue, but to highlight that these are human problems, which cannot be solved with religious sensibilities.
Why so often the nuns in India commit suicide? There should be some reasons behind this kind of unnatural deaths of so young nuns. They are the assets of the Congregation as well as of the Church. Hopefully the truth behind this unnatural death will be public for people concerned.