S1: Ep 7 - Silence

Before we start, I want to let you know that this episode contains descriptions of alleged sexual abuse.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and in silence. The Word of God is pronounced.

Elli Anastasia Damidova was a noun with the Missionaries of Charity until twenty fourteen. He now uses he him pronounce and mostly goes by the name Eli, but he asked that we refer to him as Eli Anastasia. Anastasia is the name he used when he was a sister in the MCS, So that's what we'll do. Ellie Anastasia always loved silence. Praying in silence brought him closer to God. He's fond of a quote from Mother Teresa. In the silence God speaks.

It is not the empty silence, silence filled with the presence, presence something which is greater than human being done, universe than anything else, the presence of something which is untouchable.

But now silence is painful. Since he left the Missionaries of Charity in twenty fourteen, he avoids it. He leaves a television on when he's at home, especially at.

Night, to make some kind of noise.

Why do you think silence is.

Hard because it comes back. The murmur is back.

Maybe was probably night is connected to the time when everything was happening. This anxiety again comes and the memories comes back. Never Never, I can sleep in silence.

From Rococo Punch and iHeart Radio. This is the Turning I America Lance Part seven Silence. All right, I'm just gonna press record on my end. Let's see, so your headphones are plugged in, right.

Yeah.

When we video chat, Elli Anastasia smiles a lot and this earnest almost shy way testing testing.

Yeah, that's what better.

Ellie Anastasia is thirty three years old. He's originally from Russia. There's the sweetness that radiates from him when he talks. He always wears a cap on his head with all his hair tucked into it. Today, Ellie Anastasia calls himself a human rights defender. He advocates for the LGBTQ community and abuse victims. Back in twenty fourteen, he was twenty six years old. He was a pastulent in the Missionaries of Charity. He was stationed in West Bengal, India and

No television nor radio, no news in general in the city. We never knew what is happening. It's very hot. Sometimes it is horrible raining, a lot of monkeys which are destroying everything around you.

Despite the isolation and the monkeys that tore up the MC's garden, ali Anastasia loved being there.

I was so happy that my aim was just I want to serve God. I love God. I just want to live a proper life and to pray and to love the poor and so on.

He asked his fellow sisters how to say words in Bengali so he could talk to the people who lived there.

Please teach me how to tell him God loves you. I have to tell people about love. I was just a happy person.

He remembers. The first time he met his mistress, the nun in charge of his spiritual formation and day to day life. The mistress was also the superior of the house. Usually those positions are separate, so it was like the mistress was both Eli Anastasia's boss and his boss's boss.

Something can He was just frightening me. Maybe it was just psychological because my vocations dependent on their his person or I don't know.

But Eli Anastasia told me. After he'd been there a couple of weeks, the mistress, who were not naming, started showing him special attention. She ate meals with him, just the two of them. She talked about mutual acquaintances, She empathized with challenges Eli Anastasia had faced in the past. In one conversation, his mistress said she'd received a message from the Virgin Mary that Mary told her to become

Mother Mary said, you need so much attention, you need special attention and care. And like I'm sitting the time, I remember what is going on. Why she's doing like that? Because it was lasting half an hour, forty minutes that that was so long. How to react? She's superior, she's mistress. What she's doing, I don't understand. I'm just praying this God, let it stop.

What is going on?

Around this time, Eli Anastasia says his mistress began sexualizing their day to day interactions. At the breakfast table, she read aloud letters from Mother Teresa that mentioned issues like masturbation. Sometimes in class, she read from a controversial spiritual text that hinted an incestuous relationship between Jesus and his mother Mary. Ellie Anastasia thought, this is bizarre, but he kept to his duties.

But everything turned worse.

I don't know how many weeks past, maybe two three weeks from the beginning it passed.

His mistress asked if he wanted to join her for night adoration, basically a prayer session. Elie Anastasia was excited. It was a chance for real silence.

No sounds, no, no, it's just just only gotten you, and this is wonderful.

After the evening bell rang at ten PM, Ellie Anastasio went to the chapel. His mistress sat close and shared stories from her life. By two or three am, Eli Anastasio was falling asleep. He asked for permission to go to bed, got a couple of hours of rest Before the morning bell. The next day, the mistress asked him again, please join me for night prayers. Ellie Anastasio was sleep deprived from the night before, but agreed again. They stayed

Mother Mary asked me to be your mother. I will be a good mother. To you, just God wants to your night with you.

And so on, like she's lulling you because you're so tired.

Yeah, you understand.

I can't understand how it happened because in one second she's turning I had and I'm finding that she's putting her breast into my mouth. I'm lying there and like she's putting her breast into my mouth. I paralyzed that moment. What is going on? And she's speaking something. It was something like Mother Mary was feeding Jesus and I've just paralyzed, and I don't know what to do because her breast in.

My mouth and it's awful. Just and I.

Don't know how long it was going on. Actually it was like every for me. Everything stopped.

Then there was a noise from the staircase, someone walking near the chapel. The mistress quickly covered herself with her Sorry again, Eleanasasia. I didn't know what to make of what was happening. He had no words. He grew up sheltered, no talk of sexual abuse, and he says he never received any training from the missionaries of charity about sexual harassment or what constitutes an appropriate behavior, even though this was a superior the direct voice of God. Something felt incredibly wrong.

How that is possible something like that to happen in front of the blessed sacrament the holiest of holy.

Stories about sexual abuse are often really hard to investigate, and it's even harder in a group like this that's closed to outsiders. So we partnered with an investigative reporting team type Investigations, and we worked with reporter Catherine Joyce. So, Catherine, you know, we don't know where sisters are stationed. In some cases, we might not even know if they're in

Yeah.

I think that this was one of the things that was more challenging about reporting the story than any other that I've done. It is such an insular group. There's another superior who is ultimately making a decision about whether or not people can speak to us, and that insularity is so much more formalized than in a lot of

Yeah.

I mean, we collected a lot of documents about this story, and Eli Anastasia isn't the only person with an allegation of sexual abuse in the MCS. We also spoke with another former sister named Batilde, and we're going to get to her story a little later.

To confirm both stories, we reviewed legal documents, church investigation reports, emails from the MC's regarding their policies. Plus we had dozens of letters that both Batilde and eli Anastasia had been sending back and forth with the MC's or other members of the Catholic hierarchy, other people in their lives, sort of testifying to what had happened to them.

We really did want to hear from the missionaries of charity on this, and we wrote to them several times we sent them a comprehensive list of questions. They didn't answer those questions, but we did get a statement from an MC spokesperson who told us that the alleged abusers vehemently denied the allegations.

Yeah, we asked to speak to them directly, but the MC's declined. That spokesperson also told us that the fact that ele Anastasia and Batilde quote believe they were abused is without question, but continued that the evidence compiled and the investigations the missionaries of charity conducted contradicts their accusations.

They're basically saying that they investigated the abuse and they say that the abuse did not happen.

Yep.

You know.

The other thing that stuck out to me in this response is the suggestion that these former sisters both had mental health problems. They also emphasized that neither of them took vows, basically implying that they weren't real missionaries of charity, sort of as a defense against these allegations.

You know, there is a long history of responding to rape allegations or abuse allegations by denigrating the mental health of the person who's making the accusation or delegitimizing them in one way or another, basically calling them crazy, sickly calling them crazy. You know, back during the Bill Clinton era, the defense that was commonly made against all of the women who came forward with allegations against President Clinton was referred to as nuts and sluts because women were just

This praying together. It became a nightly ritual. And Ellie Anastasia says, his mistress pushed things further.

She was trying to put for kind, but it should not be at all, never, never, never, because of the vow of chastity. First to fall under my skirt, and I said, whoa stop, what are you doing?

The mistress pulled back her hand, but kept moving her body.

Against his.

And it was just awful.

Ellie Anastasia wanted to tell someone. He tried to describe this thing he didn't understand. In confession, he says, the priest dismissed him.

Child.

Your superior knows I know how very well. She wouldn't wish anything.

Bad to you. She's your superior. Listen and do what she tells you.

Ellie Anastasia thought maybe he could phone another priest he knew, but he had to ask his mistress for permission to use a payphone in town. Then his mistress stood directly beside him while he made the call. It seemed like there was no way to tell anyone, so Ellie Anastasia says the abuse continued for months. This type of abuse, he alleges abused by a nun. It tends to fly under the radar in the Catholic Church, partly because people don't expect women to be abusers.

This is a very unaddressed part of Catholic Church history.

Mary Despenza used to be a nun. She now works with SNAP, the Survivors Network for those abused by priests. She leads support groups for survivors. She's their point person for abuse involving nuns.

I have probably heard from one hundred and twenty or so survivors of non abuse.

It wasn't until after she started leading support groups for survivors of none abuse that you realize an incident from her own time as a nun had been sexual assault. That's so hard it can be to recognize none abuse.

Sometimes religious orders are a little bit different from let's say the clergy, because you build up, especially women religious, you really become a family.

I often say.

Religious abuse within orders men and women is very much like incest. The tendency is even greater to keep quiet and silent because you don't want to hurt your family.

And then there's the vow of obedience.

They're afraid because they're taught. If you ask questions, it's a sin. If you doubt anything, it's a sin.

This is Tom Doyle. He was a Catholic priest for forty years. In the nineteen eighties, he became one of the first priests to draw attention to the clergy sex abuse crisis. He wrote a ninety two page report that urged the church to take the problem seriously.

It was the end of my career in the Vatican as a priest.

Almost twenty years later, the National Catholic Reporter wrote that his report had been prophetic. Today, Doyle estimates his report has been cited in thousands of lawsuits, and he's become a global expert. He's worked on or consulted on more than a thousand clergy sex abuse cases around the world. He says the rigid hierarchy in conservative religious orders like the Missionaries of Charity can trap abuse victims.

Orders where the Mother General or the Mother Superior's word was considered to be the word of God, so that even if they would tell you, even if the Superior gives you an order that is wrong, you have to obey it because it's God's word. Now that is insanity.

Eli Anastasia learned to follow the rule of obedience years before he ever came to India. Back in two thousand and eight, six years before his time, intioned Sarah. He was just starting out. He was an MC pre aspirant in Poland. One day he got news that his grandmother, who was like a mother to him, had died. The mistress in Poland scolded him for crying. Eli Anastasia asked for permission to go home for the funeral, but the mistress said.

If you want to go to funeral or somewhere else, but your thinks to go away and never come back again, or shut up and go and smile to your sisters.

So basically, either leave and go to the funeral but never come back, yeah, or stay but stop crying, go smile and be your sister.

And It was just one or two hours after I got the phone call about that. Oh my heart was broken to kid Jesus, I choose you and what I did? I cried for the last time I went and I started to smile.

Eli Anastassia was eventually dismissed from the MC house in Poland. He told us he doesn't know why. When we ask the Missionaries of Charity for comment, an authorized spokesperson claimed Eli Anastasia was dismissed because of his personal conduct. The spokesperson said it included a claim that he put his

Making up rumors and gossips is the only strategy that the religious family would choose in this terrible situation, in spite of following the way of God, who is a friend of truth.

Eli Anastasia says he wasn't suicidal in Poland. He felt being in the MCY house in Poland was one of the happiest times in his life. And not only did he never assault his fellow aspirant, but he says the reverse actually happened. A sister who Anastasia says was troubled, had attacked him twice, ripping the buttons off his shirt.

This is the room of abuse.

It wasn't separated by a wall, just a bamboo screen and a curtain instead of a door.

Just every day the same story.

She was coming in the mother's room around eleven o'clock and she was taking off my clothes. She was taking off holl clothes. She was lying in the bed. She was putting me on the top, like trying to put breast on breast and just making the movements in order to.

Get Eliannastas Yeah, loses his words here, but in a letter he sent the MCS in twenty nineteen, he wrote that his mistress quote moved her body till she got pleasure.

She was just constantly repeating about the sacrifice and your special one. You're my Jesus, I'm Mary. You're like Jesus to me. You're like Jesus to me. You're like Jesus to me, and like she was whispering on my ear. This is for the salvation of the world. This is for those who are living in scene. This is for those who are not keeping chaesty tis. This is not the scene. This is just a sacrifice.

One time, ali Anastasia says he traveled with his mistress to Kolkata. While they are there, the mistress pointed out another nun. She said that sister betrayed her. The mistress told ali Anastasia, I was a mother to her. She was my daughter like you. She was like my Jesus. Ali Anastasia thought to himself, this is my mistress, admitting she's done this before. The mistress then turned to Elie Anastasia and.

Said, will you betray me? Why are you going to be my judas?

For decades, the news has been full of stories of sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. They started coming to light while Mother Teresa was still alive and came close to home.

I don't know how you know about Tom maguire, but he was a serial abuser of boys.

Terry McKiernan is the founder of Bishop Accountability, an organization that documents abuse in the Catholic Church. He's referring to Donald maguire, formerly Father Donald Mare, a Jesuit priest defrocked in two thousand and eight. Donald McGuire was one of many priests who went to prison for sexually abusing boys, and one of the most prominent. He was a conservative and inspiring priest with powerful friends.

His mo was that he targeted wealthy, right wing Catholic families, and once he ingratiated himself into that family and began syphoning off funds, he would also convince them to allow their twelve or thirteen year old son to accompany him as his secretary. During these trips, which were you know, basically he was always on the road, he would sexually assault the boy who had been picked to be his his secretary.

In nineteen eighty three, McGuire became a spiritual director of the Missionaries of Charity. He traveled the world to MC houses to hear confessions from MC sisters, and he held dozens of retreats for the order. Mother Teresa also met alone with him for confession and spiritual advice. You've actually heard about Donald McGuire before. He's the priest who warned Joan Worcester not to leave the MCS or she'd get

The sisters and they're very distinctive as guard, attended the trial to support him. There are pictures of this in the courthouse.

The sisters wore buttons on their sare's that read I support father McGuire.

The sisters were very very present at that trial.

In the end, he was convicted and sent to prison for twenty five years. What happened with Donald McGuire and the MCS, it gives me a sense of how the congregation responds to sexual abuse from the top down. And that's what I think this episode is about, not just how a culture can enable abuse, but also how a system works when abuse comes to light. It makes me think of a story Mary Johnson told me. You've heard

There was one time there was a sister she was very upset about something.

Mary had a lot of responsibility. She traveled with Mother Teresa. She prepared sisters for final vows, basically upper management. She says. She told me at one point that she learned about something that happened to several sisters in Europe.

There was a terrible thing that happened in a convent in a remote location, and one night men broke into the convent and they raped the sisters, and it was a really horrible thing.

Mary says this story was somewhat common knowledge among sisters. With authority. She heard about it from several nuns, including one who was there that night. Another former sister told us she'd heard about the same attack. Also directly from a sister who'd been there. She said it was whispered about in Kolcutta, but considered top secret. In Mary Johnson's case, she says she helped one of the nuns from that

Attack, and Mother told them, now you have told Mother, you must never tell anyone else again. You must never speak of it. And obviously this is not going to be helpful to those sisters. Those sisters had had this very traumatic experience. You don't heal from trauma by ignoring it.

Why do you think Mother Teresa said that to them, to not speak of it ever again.

She would often say that for various things, like, Okay, you've told Mother, now, never speak of it again, for various things. For Mother, speaking about bad things that had happened was almost as bad, or even worse than the fact that the thing had happened.

Mary says, Mother Teresa just didn't understand how trauma worked, that hiding something could make it worse, and that brings us to Batild. Batilde asked us not to use her last name. She's sixty two years old and lives in Paris, and she was once a sister with the Missionaries of Charity.

The first letter.

Over the past eighteen years, she's written a lot of letters. They describe abuse, she says she experienced in the order, letters to the head of the Missionaries of Charity, letters to the Vatican.

Yes, I have it in front of me.

The first letter in two thousand and three was to his sister. We're not naming her alleged abuser.

I think you remember me. I was your postudent in Rome in San Gregorio, a on the year nighteen eighty seven, the one that you have sexually abused.

It was in that convent in San Gregorio that she met the sister who she says sexually abused her. Her mistress. But Til says, at first the mistress just directed her as she would any pasturelant. But a few weeks in her mistress told her she loved her. Then things became physical.

After night prayer, she would sit calm and then sitting in the bench, and then she would kiss me, and I mean I don't like to see it. She would, I mean she would kiss me, she would put my breast. She would tell me. One day I will take your clothes all out and I will kiss you everywhere. But she only said, and she did not do. I knew that every day it would happen, That's all I knew.

Batilda did what she could to avoid her, but that angered her.

Mistress, you have to you have to obey me. You are very disobedient.

In time, she says, the abuse became more forceful.

She would take me and we were to get that big corridor. She would push me again the wall or walking in front of me, and then turned suddenly and taking me in to her arms. And I mean I could not escape. I mean I didn't know what to do.

Batilda says she didn't dare tell the regional Superior. She just yelled at her. She told multiple priests, but says they were no help, that they pretended not to hear her and change the subject. She says mother Teresa once asked her if someone was bothering her, but that she said nothing for fear of being scolded. Batilda outwardly changed during this time. She remembers the regional Superior reprimanded.

Her, why are you not smiling? You never smile. I could not smile. I was it was difficult.

Eventually she gave up. She felt empty justin.

Let her do and I did not defend myself.

Batild graduated out of postulancy and was transferred to Poland. The abuse was over. It was a relief, so much so she remarked one day how nice it was to be there, and according to Batilde, the superior there overheard and asked what she meant. She started to tell her story and the superior stopped her. You don't need to go any further, She said, I know who it is. She named Batild's mistress and said she did the same

She says.

She reached out to Sister Nimala Joshi, the founder of the Contemplative branch. She told Sister Normala about the abuse. In response, Batilde says, Sister Narmala encouraged her to see a psychologist. And one more.

Thing, she told me, you don't speak to anybody of what happened. You speak to nobody, absolutely nobody, So I mean, is the thing that I have to do? Speak to anybody? And then now having very much pain in this talk, and then that was not a good thing to say, not to speak to anybody.

In time, Batilda was sent home again, dismissed from the MCS, and again it wasn't clear why, just a vague suggestion that she wasn't obedient enough. They dropped her off at the airport with four hundred dollars and a miraculous medal, one of those tokens Mother Teresa used to give out. Batild went home to Paris years past. That brings us back to the letter writing around two thousand and three, Batilda read in the newspaper about the global sexual abuse

And I will feel much better and I will feel all right. I mean, all my life is rooin for me.

She damaged everything, so she wrote to her former mistress, you.

Made my life very difficult. It was very difficult to pray because of flashback coming in my head. Lack of trust, pain in the stomach and lack of trust were the superiors. How do you repair all that?

She also sent a copy to Sister Nimala, the sister who'd sent her to a psychologist and told her never to speak of it. By now, Sister Narmala was actually the Superior General Mother Teresa's successor to lead the MCS A couple of weeks later, but Tilt heared back from her former mistress. She flatly denied the allegations. I have done nothing to bring upon me such an accusation, she wrote. Then she ended the letter, I am praying for you and asking the Lord to forgive you.

I felt very very bad. Dead letter, very bad.

She also received a respond from Sister Nimala, the head of the MC at the time.

Dear Bathilde, thank you for the copy of your letter to sister date fourth November two or three, accusing her of sexually abusing you when you were a postant. I was deeply pain when I read it.

In the letter, Sister Nermala said, she spoke to the alleged abuser, and that quote, the mature way in which she responded to such a painful situation, leaves me no room to doubt her sincerity. Then Sister Normala addressed but telt herself.

I wonder what made you write such a letter. Is it really true? Or is it because you are so hurt in life that you can't help hurting others also? Whatever it may be, I asked Jesu if to take away all the burden of pain you carry in your heart and fill it with his own love, so that you may be able to forgive all who have hurt you, and ask pardon of all whom you have heard, and ask o lady, and to be tilled.

The message was clear she was the one causing problems case closed, no follow up, no investigation, no apology.

As with much love and prayer, God bless you, Sister Nyamala MC.

This did not inter Beteld. She wrote Sister Nimala back the next month in December two thousand and three, no response. Again in June two thousand and four, no response. In November two thousand and four, she wrote again, Please sister, do not put down a sister who was suffered from sexual harassment, otherwise you victimize her. A second time, more silence. Finally Sister Nimala responded. It was late January two thousand and five. Sister Nimala wrote, we want to know the truth.

Prayer is difficult to pray, but I do. I do. I feel hard in everything. I feel like I feel like if I don't exist, it's like a big, infinite devastation of the being.

Me.

I want a truth, that's all, and I'm not getting it.

In twenty seventeen, Batilde renewed her letter writing campaign. She wrote to Pope Francis, who'd said sympathetic things about victims. She didn't hear back from him. She heard from the Vatican's Office on Religious Orders off her allegations, and eventually they warned that if she continued to say the Church had treated her unfairly, she could face legal action for slander. El Anastasia couldn't sleep, or really, his mistress wouldn't let

I was a zombie. You didn't understand what I'm doing. I could not really even separate the reality and not reality because you're sleeping or not sleeping. It was just one day, which is not finishing.

One night, eli Anasasia and his mistress heard a sound. Somebody nearby used the bathroom and then left quickly. Eli Anastasia figured the sister must have overheard them.

For sure, everybody heard it. It is just not possible not to hear.

Then, out of the blue, a senior sister from MC headquarters visited the house. She interviewed eli Anasasia's fellow pastulant for an entire day. Soon after, ali Anasasia says he was abruptly summoned to Kolkatta by Sister Ansie, the head of the MC's contemplative branch.

And she said, I want to talk to you or have a conversation. Please come on Wednesday, but by the way, can you pick up all your clothes and things.

Eli Anastasia's mistress was summoned too. When they arrived, Sister Ansie spoke to the mistress for first. They talked for over an hour. Then it was Eli Anastasia's turn.

Hello, sister, and she's starting to shout at me. You have to go from here with a minute, sister. I can't understand what is going on, like I'm believing that in Chinsula. I cannot understand what is happening, Like what is the reason you called me?

Can you explain me what you want from me?

Eli Anastasio was being sent away, not just from Chinsura, not just from India, but he would find out later from the missionaries of charity, and he didn't know why. In an email to us, the MC spokesperson suggested that Eli Anastasio was dismissed because of his personal conduct. The spokesperson implied he'd become fixated on a fellow sister and acted inappropriately. Eli Anastasia says, no one said anything like this to him.

There was no nothing euh like, no no breakings of the rules, nothing, nothing, nothing, he says.

He asked again and again why he was being sent away. Finally, he says, sister Unsie told him that since Eli Anastasio was Russian and Vladimir Putin had invaded Ukraine, his presence might cause problems for the sisters in Chinsura.

I can't understand, really, what is the reason, because what I have to do with Putin?

As far as he knew, no sister had ever been sent away from the MCS for something like this. After all, once you're called, you're called for life. He was given a plane ticket home to Russia. As for his mistress, Alianisasia says she also got a ticket. She was transferred to another MC branch in Nepal. Once he was back in Russia, Eli Anastasia fell into a deep depression. Friend he stayed with had to force him to eat.

I was just a vegetable out of reality, fully, no desires, nothing, nothing.

He didn't have the language to explain what had happened to him. For a few months he was suicidal. One day he spent a long time alone in a chapel in front of the altar, pleading with God.

So on the question to God, why if you gave me this vocation to be a nun, why it had happened, How you allowed to deal with it? How I should live with that? Where is the way you called me? And what shall I do now?

With all that?

I cannot even understand what is going on, crying and shouting to Jesus, and crying and shouting still.

Eventually ali an Assassium met other people who had suffered traumatic experiences. They gave him the words he needed, sexual abuse PTSD. Over time he thought maybe there are other victims and the missionaries of charity, and if I couldn't name what happened, how could they. In twenty nineteen, five years after he was forced from the order, ali Anastasia wrote a letter your sisters.

This letter is written in fulfillment of the instruction of my spiritual father and it is addressed to Reverend Sister Prema, as the head of the Society of the Missionaries of Charity. The main topic of this letter is sexual and spiritual abuse.

Ali Anastasia laid out what had happened to him.

I wanted to have a dialogue with the society first, just to share my story, because my main aim to change the neglect.

Three months later, he got a phone call. It was Sister Prema, the current Superior General of the MCS. She asked Eli Anastasia, what exactly did he want them to do for him. So Ali Anastasia wrote a list of

I was asking close to Sister Prema to appoint a proper person to whom any sisters anyone in the society can freely without permission, without asking permission for a phone call, can turn and to report.

In response, the MC's commissioned a canon lawyer to look at the case. A canon lawyer is someone accredited to work within the Catholic Church's internal legal system.

My name is Helen Costigan. I'm a member of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. I live in Hammersmith and London, and I teach model theology and canon lawsuit Mary's University in Twickenham.

Helen Costigan's job was to investigate the claims of abuse, but she told us she wasn't actually able to conduct a full investigation. The sisters were too hard to reach, often in remote locations with bad connections and no computers. But Helen Costigan wrote a report. The spokesperson for the Missionaries of Charity set in an email to us that Costigan's report concluded there was quote no concrete evidence to suffort the allegations. She did say that, but it's not all she.

Said, and there is no evidence to support the allegations. But that's not to say that it didn't happen.

Like Elianastasia, she told the mcs they should make changes, provide training and maintaining proper boundaries, create an external channel to report abuse, and psychologically assess sisters when they enter. She said the mc should look at Pope Francis's new guidelines on sexual abuse, which expressly forbid retaliation against victims.

That's somethings Porte Francis has said, you have to listen to the victims that's important.

Costigan asked Eleannastasia to total his expenses related to his trauma, and she told the MCS to follow up about compensation. Finally, she asked the MCS to give eli Anastasia a copy of the official report, but the Missionaries of Charity didn't do that. Instead, in February twenty twenty, they sent ele Anastasia a letter. It insinuated that his allegations were just a ruse for money, that Eli Anastasia should quote be careful, and then they wrote this, what you have written could

She's just threatening me with the black mail. If I would not have such a support like now on that letter, I don't know, I would be suicidal.

Costigan was concerned enough that she responded to the MCS directly, writing.

I was appalled by the tone and content. Is putting it mildly because I have to say I thought, oh, that's really you know, that's not helping in a sense.

After Costigan's letter, the MCS did send eli Anastasia the report, but now he worried he could be at legal risk, so he looked for a lawyer. He found his way to Tom Doyle, the former priest we heard from earlier who's worked on more than a thousand clergy sex abuse cases. He's also a canon lawyer. He consulted pro bono on ele Anastasia's case for a few months in twenty twenty

And still I have nothing against the sisters itself, I have nothing against the charge itself. Still today I have wonderful sisters who are really leaving their vocation as they can and trying to do the best they can.

I'm against the system.

We should embrace our faults, to change, to take a responsibility for annection.

You know, it's interesting to me here and you say that because it's bringing to my mind that speaking your faults and acknowledging your failure is such a big part of being a missionary of charity. And so in a sense what you're asking for is actually very central to the mission, which is to acknowledge sin or acknowledge faults and making amends in some way. And that's what you want.

Yeah, Today, missionaries of charity, there are really witnesses of silence, to cover up, to hide, to silence others. That's not a silence in which God leaves. It is completely opposite. God is not a friend of covering up the oppression. God is a friend of truth. Preach the truth as if you had a million voices. It is silence that kills the world.

This episode was reported in partnership with Type Investigations. You can find out more at Type investigations dot org. Special thanks to reporter Katherine Joyce, editor Sasha Bolenki, Factchucker Nandanni Rotti, and editor Sarah Blustain. The Turning is written by Allen Lance Lesser and me Our producers are Allen Lancelesser and Emily Foreman. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal Andrea Esfahe is

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