“Religious Sisters Are Not Priests’ Wives or Bedmates”

Yet too often, behind stained glass windows and polished marble altars, we are treated as less. A priest once told me without shame: “Sisters are meant to be priests’ wives.” He did not say it in jest. He meant it. And he acted on it.

This is not an isolated case. Too many Sisters know the pain of being reduced to temptation instead of being respected as collaborators in Christ’s vineyard. Too many know the silent wounds of manipulation—when a cleric uses “spiritual direction” as a cover for advances, or when financial benefactors expect our dignity in exchange for support.

But it does not end there. The abuse is not only from outside. Within our own congregations, superiors sometimes wield authority as a weapon. Sisters are silenced and maltreated leaving them vulnerable to predators. Others, instead of guiding with integrity, flirt with power and position while the rest are crushed under obedience without justice. We see this and stay silent.

And let me be equally clear: to those Sisters who abandon their vows for promiscuity—whether to gain favor, material advantage, or pleasure—you too wound the Body of Christ. You weaken the prophetic witness of consecrated life and betray the very dignity we demand from the world. It is betrayal from within, and it hands the enemies of truth more reasons to sneer at our vocation.

The scandal is not only in the sin itself, but in the silence that protects it. A Church that preaches purity while tolerating the defilement of its consecrated women is a Church that mocks its own Gospel.

I write this, not out of hatred for the Church but I love my Church too much to stay silent. Such silence has never protected the innocent it only feeds the wolves.