Sexual Harassment in the Church
...Smith, 2003). The research was aimed at three areas of sexual trauma: sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, and sexual harassment. Of the 1,154 surveys that were returned, 6% of the nuns responded that they had been sexually abused by a member of the church during their childhood. Surprising, 12.5% of the nuns claimed to have been sexually exploited by a member of the church. Even more shocking was that 24.7% of the exploitation was carried out by a female religious person. Sexual harassment was the lowest area of abuse among the nuns at 9.3%, while male priest or other male authority figures made up 48.1% as the harasser (Smith, 2003). This survey was conducted in 1996, at the request of blessing of several orders of Catholic nuns, but its finding were never released, with the exception of two religious research journals in 1998. While the Vatican has made efforts to assist abused nuns outside of the United States, little has been said or done for the U.S. nuns whom live self-imposed lives of shame, anger, and self-loathing (Smith, 2003). While it is reprehensible for a priest to molest or abuse children, then for the church to move the accused priests from parish to parish to hide their deeds, it is disgraceful that the Catholic Church does not protect their own and above all subject these women of the cloth to the humiliation of sexual trauma. While the facts h...