By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, Dec 11, 2024: The diocese of Eluru in southern India has launched an investigation after a trainee nun, who was allegedly impregnated by a Capuchin seminarian, killed her newborn child inside a Catholic hostel.
“The diocese has asked the child abuse prevention committee to make a report on the matter and submit the report to the bishop in a day or two,” Father Bala P, the vicar general, told Matters India on December 11.
He also said the police have arrested the seminarian, a deacon, and kept him in custody for questioning.
Father Bala said the girl and the seminarian come from the same village and are distantly related.
The matter came to light on December 8 when a man in Eluru alerted the police saying that he had seen someone throwing a body from a Catholic hostel near his house.
The police and the Women Development and Child Welfare Department officials recovered the blood-stained body of the infant outside St Joseph Convent Hostel, managed by the Religious Teachers of St. Lucy Filippini, a 332-year-old Italian congregation.
Eluru’s 2-Town Circle Inspector Ramana and his team found the girl in the hostel and rushed her to Sarvajana Hospital as she was in poor health after delivering the child secretly.
The police also sent the infant’s body to the hospital morgue for further examination, and deployed forensic teams to collect evidence from the scene.
The Hindu newspaper quoting an official reported: “The minor girl gave birth to a female baby in the toilet, took bath, cleaned the bathroom and reportedly threw the baby from the terrace of the hostel building.”
But the police said the girl, who had turned 18 in July, was a second-year intermediate student from Nandyal, some 390 km southwest of Eluru. She has been a resident of the hostel for the past two years.
Eluru Deputy Superintendent of Police D. Sravan Kumar told reporters that they had received a call around 7 am on December 8. The infant’s body was found in the compound of a house adjacent to the hostel.
He said the police have registered a case and started an investigation.
Meanwhile many have questioned the inability of the hostel authorities to detect the girl’s pregnancy.
The editor Goa Chronicle, a website, says the incident has raised critical questions about the supervision and accountability of institutions managed by the Church.
According to him, the hostel authorities’ failure to notice the girl’s pregnancy highlighted glaring gaps in monitoring and care. “Why were her physical and emotional changes overlooked by staff and administrators? How did such a significant development go unnoticed in a tightly knit community?” he asked
Convent hostels, he adds, are designed to be “sanctuaries of safety and moral guidance” and such organizations are expected to “maintain rigorous oversight over their wards, many of whom are adolescents far from their families.”
“However, the incident has cast a shadow over the hostel’s ability to safeguard its residents, particularly those who are vulnerable and in need of support,” he says.
The editor finds a disconnect between what such institutions preach and practice.
He wants the incident to serve as a wake-up call for institutions like St. Joseph Convent Hostel.
Beyond addressing this specific case, the Diocese of Eluru and other similar organizations must undertake comprehensive reviews of their policies and practices to prevent such tragedies in the future, he suggested.