Indian Church reacts to defamation in media, stops playing passive victims

Catholic religious men and women are no longer mere spectators to the' deliberate attempts' to malign their image.

Catholic officials in Kerala have registered more than 160 police complaints across the state, according to  Father Michael Pulickal, secretary of Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council's commission for social harmony and vigilance.

Taking serious note of the rising trend to defame the Church in mainstream media and social media platforms, priests and nuns have stopped playing the role of passive victims.

Fed up with the stream of lies, half-truths, and misleading facts, “Our priests and nuns have lodged more than 160 police complaints across the state against certain online, mainstream and social media platforms for portraying Catholic priests and nuns in a poor light,” Father Pulickal told UCA News.

In some instances, the  Kerala police were hostile and refused to register their complaints. Still, the bishops’ council and other church bodies would “not succumb to pressure” and continue their campaign “for legal action until we get justice.” he said.

While the usual practice has been to ignore adverse posts on the media, the last straw was probably pictures of women dressed in religious habits of Catholic nuns posted by photographer Yaami on social media.

Though Yaami's pictures are widely appreciated in liberal and feminist photographic circles, many Kerala Christians found them objectionable.

The pictures went viral, and the woman photographer told Asianet, a local news portal: “Two young women in nuns’ clothes hug warmly, walk together hand in hand, and laugh together. The issue is how people look at these photographs.”

 Church officials complained that the photos portrayed Catholic nuns as lesbians.

"Women do not cease to be women just because they live inside a nunnery,” Yammi countered while adding that she did not mean to denigrate Catholic religion or its systems.

“People looked at their clothes [habit], but I looked at the funny side of it,” she said while asserting her right to shoot as per her creative urges.

The government had failed to take disciplinary action, and hence “our people are going to lodge as many complaints as possible until the authorities initiate action against those trying to destroy Catholic religious life,” the priest said.

Church officials said the photographs were not an isolated case but 'part of a trend' that came in the wake of a nun claiming she was raped by Bishop Franco Mulakkal that made national headlines.

YouTuber Jolly Adimathra posted a video calling for an end to the practice of Catholic religious life for women and closing down the nunneries, drawing parallels with the ancient practice of the Devadasis in India.

The practice was abolished as the Devadasis were sexually exploited by the rich and the powerful linked with the temples. Similarly, claimed Adimathra in the video, nunneries were created to satiate the sexual urges of the male-dominated Catholic hierarchy.

“We cannot tolerate this anymore. We want the government to act against those tarnishing our image as priests and nuns,” Father Pulickal said.

 “The negative portrayal of nuns and priests is a conspiracy to keep the younger generation of Catholics away from religious life,” said a nun belonging to Voice of Nuns, a group of religious who interacts with members of the public through social media on issues that plague them.

“Despite the humiliations and hatred, we continue to take care of the friends and relatives of those attacking us. It is really painful to be called prostitutes or slaves,” a nun from the Daughters of St. Joseph told UCA News.