By Matters India Reporter
Vettuthura, March 2, 2023: A young woman, who was undergoing training to become a nun, was found hanging in a convent room in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
“I am going to Jesus as I understand I cannot lead a genuine life on this earth,” Anna Poorani’s suicide note read.
The 27-year-woman was an aspirant of the Sisters of Providence of the Institute of Charity, (Rosminian Sisters of Providence), an Italian congregation. She was residing at the congregation’s Vettuthura convent near Thiruvananthapuram, capital of Kerala state.
She died by hanging from the ceiling fan in her room on February 27.
The suicide note written in Tamil, her mother tongue, said she had taken full responsibility for her action.
She was the latest among nearly two dozen suicides of the nuns in the Catholic Church in India since 1987. Most death were reported from Kerala.
Sister Mary Helen Sebastian, the provincial superior in a press note, expressed her congregation’s condolences to the departed soul.
“Poorani had joined the community on the previous night for all activities until she retired to bed,” the provincial stated.
When Poorani failed to turn up for morning prayers the next day, other nuns went to her room and found her hanging from the ceiling fan.
The nuns immediately contacted the nearest police station. Police officials took down the body and handed it over to her family members after completing autopsy and other legal formalities.
Her body was taken to her home town Tirupur in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu and buried the following day.
Some people, however, raised questions about the suicide and suspected it as a case of murder.
A Church official, who is aware of the developments, however, denied any foul play in her death and asserted it was a case of suicide.
According to the official, who did not want to be identified, Poorani was suffering from depression, but no one had thought that she would take such an extreme step. Nobody could judge her situation as she performed her daily activities like others, he added.
Sister Sebastian also said that Poorani sometimes tried to be aloof from the community, talking little to others.
Poorani joined the congregation three years ago. She spent some time in Andhra Pradesh, another southern Indian state as part of her training and returned to Kerala in January. She was initially at a convent at Cheriyathura and was later shifted to Vettuthura.
The police after prima facie investigation said it was a case of suicide and ruled out any foul play into her death.
Earlier, in December 2021 a group of Catholics appealed to the Conference of Religious India (CRI) to probe the alleged suicide of Sister Mary Mercy, a member of the Franciscan Immaculate Sisters in Jalandhar diocese in northern Indian state of Punjab.
The 30-year-old nun was found hanging from a window of the convent’s chapel on November 30, 2022.
Her family members suspected foul play and had sought police investigation into it but her congregation denied the charge asserting that it was a case of suicide.
The CRI, in its finding, noted that at least 20 nuns including novices, had committed suicide since 1987 in India. Most deaths occurred in Kerala that account for nearly one third of India’s nearly 125,000 Catholic women religious.
Church authorities have denied such claims and termed the deaths as cases of suicide. However, no serious probe was carried out except in the case of Sister Abhaya, whose body was found in the well of St. Pius Convent in Kerala’s Kottayam town on March 27, 1992.
Church authorities claimed it as a case of suicide but a group of people, however, rejected it and pressed for further probe that led to conviction of a Catholic priest and a nun after a three-decade legal battle.
A special Central Bureau of Investigation court on December 23, 2020, sentenced Father Thomas Kottoor and Sister Sephy to life imprisonment for the murder.
The duo had challenged the special court order in the Kerala High court, which recently granted them bail.
It needs a lot of explaining why so many “suicides” in Kerala convents. Even in the case of Sister Abhaya, whose body was found in the well of St. Pius Convent in Kerala’s Kottayam town on March 27, 1992, it was termed by her congregation as a case of suicide. But later investigations proved it was a murder. What is CBCI’s (and also Sisters in Solidarity) stand on this?