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NEWS & LETTERS, October - November 2007
Women World Wide
by Mary Jo Grey
Sixty-two years after the end of WWII, the Japanese Supreme Court acknowledged that women had been kidnapped and coerced into sex slavery by the Japanese military during the war, yet the government still rejects claims by victims for compensation. But they were not alone in perpetuating this barbarism. After the war, with approval from the U.S. occupation authorities, Japan set up a similar “comfort women” system in which tens of thousands of women were forced to provide sex to U.S. troops.
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Nuns in Santa Barbara, Cal. are being evicted to help pay a $660 million settlement to the victims of sex abuse by priests the Catholic Church has been protecting for decades. The Los Angeles Archdiocese is selling their convent, which has housed the order of nuns for more than 40 years. “The pain is being spread around,” said an archdiocese spokesman. The nuns will be forced to move by the end of the year, although an earlier departure “would be acceptable,” said the archdiocese vicar general. “What hurts the most,” said Sr. Angela Escalera, the order’s local superior, “is what the money would be used for--to help pay for the pedophile priests. We have to sacrifice our home for that?” She said that the sisters have been overwhelmed by offers of help from the community.
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