Catholic nuns are not weak beings but strong women for service, says an Indian nun and a leading human rights activist.
“We are proud to be nuns, not with blind obedience, blind submissiveness, blind faith but with reason and liberty rendering service to humanity beyond race, religion, caste, sex and place of birth upholding the tenets of Jesus Christ and the Constitutional values,” said Sister Jessy Kurian, a member of the St. Anne’s Providence of Secunderabad.
She is a former member of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions and a lawyer at the Supreme Court of India.
Sister Jessy, the educator-turned-lawyer, was addressing a group of nuns in Mumbai, Western India, on the occasion of the World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life (world day for nuns) on February 2.
In 1997, Pope Saint John Paul II established the annual observance of World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life in the Catholic Church. It is celebrated on February 2, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the temple.
Quoting Pope Francis, Sister Jessy said, "I invite them to fight when, in some cases, they are treated unfairly, even within the Church, when they serve so much that they are reduced to servitude....at times by the powerful men of the Church."
According to her, “Nunhood is a lifestyle like marriage as held by Kerala High Court. A nun is a voice of the voiceless, she is an angel to protect the weak, and is the heart and soul of the church.”
Appreciating the works and services of nuns in India and around the world, John Dayal, a lay Catholic leader and journalist, said, “They (nuns) are in the news for their commitment to the poor and the marginalized, their work ethics, individual courage, and brilliance as doctors, teachers, lawyers and social activists. They also make the news in courts, winning cases, including some on their own identity, and the occasional one when they test the criminal justice system.”
Another lawyer, Sister Mary Scaria, in her stay in Delhi decades ago was a collaborator in setting up India's first helplines for tribal women workers in distress in the urban areas of north India. The victims, from the Chhotanagpur region of central India, working in domestics from Delhi to Chandigarh, were exploited financially, and in workloads, and often sexually.
The helpline was one connected with rescue and justice. The helpline branched off to the rescue of students and youth from the northeast Indian states in distress.
Sister Mary also helped identify incidents of rape by pro-Hindu extremist groups in the 2007-08 anti-Christian pogroms in Kandhamal, Odisha, eastern India.
“All nuns – too many great women to list. Saluting each one of them, including the ones who may have terrorized young girls in junior and middle school in convents. They are remembered with love in older age,” said Dayal, a human rights activist based in New Delhi, India’s capital.
India has more than 100,000 Catholic nuns. Most of them work in rural areas in education, social work, healthcare and pastoral work.
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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