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| A nun is suing her former convent and its Archbishopric after she was raped, made pregnant, and allegedly pressured to leave the convent. |
A Chilean nun is suing her convent after they forced her to leave when she was raped and became pregnant.
The nun was raped by the convent's then repair-man. She says that when her fellow sisters at the convent discovered she was pregnant, they strongly encouraged to leave the convent and church, according to BBC News.
She is now suing the Archbishopric of Santiago and the Order of St Clare. Her lawyers allege the convent blamed her for being raped, and say the Archbishopric needs to Santiago 'to own up to its responsibility' on the matter.
'She is a nun living in a convent who was raped and instead of being protected she was blamed for what happened,' her lawyer Camila Maturana said.
In response, the Rt Rev Jorge Concha, the Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago, said that she had left the convent 'voluntarily' and the Archbishopric only became aware of the rape and subsequent events on 27 March.
The unnamed nun joined the religious order in 2002 at age 20. In 2012, she was tasked with providing food to the men carrying out repairs at the convent, when one of them raped her.
She kept this secret from the rest of the convent 'out of fear and shame, because a sense of shame came over me and didn't let me express myself,' she said to 24 Horas.
Three months later, the convent discovered she was pregnant, but gave the nun 'zero support'. She said her fellow sisters were 'very cruel' to her, blamed her for the rape and pressured her to leave the convent.
'They wanted me to hand over my habit, but I wasn't going to do that,' she said.
She did leave the convent, but refused to leave the Church itself. She gave her child up for adoption. In 2015, the man who raped her was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail.
The nun said she felt 'abandoned by my only family and my Church, which I have always defended like a lioness'.
Credits: Joseph Hartropp
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