In recent years, revelations of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests have broken out from behind a well-guarded wall of secrecy. Despite the publicity of hundreds of such cases, one area of healing and investigation remains: that of women religious who also are guilty of sexually abusing children and each other. As one pastoral psychotherapist with whom I have had contact put it, this is the next area in which sexual abuse accounting will take place.
Indeed, accounts of women in general who sexually abuse children are nearly non-existent, and research on the topic of nuns and sisters who abuse children presently has not been available. As a published journalist of some twenty-five years, a survivor of such abuse and the founder of the countrys only national support network of survivors of sexual abuse by nuns and sisters, I am in the unique position to write Habits of Sin An Expos of Nuns Who Sexually Abuse Children and Each Other.
Although my original intention was to investigate the topic of child sexual abuse by nuns, I learned during my investigative work and research of nearly six years that serious incidents of sexual abuse between nuns--often for power or educational favors--is also common, and plays well into the topic of nuns who are sexually abusive in general. Therefore, I expanded my original concept.
I have worked with individuals and organizations--all of whom contacted my network--from twenty-three states and Ireland, and it was their contributions and interest that made this book possible.
While the books Lead Us Not Into Temptation and A Gospel of Shame concern the issue of priests who molest children, this expos is the first comprehensive volume about nuns, and to some degree, women, and therefore, serves as an important and new research tool.
This work is filled with information, historical perspectives and personal accounts to help guide readers who are survivors of such abuse to a place of peace. For those reading this simply out of a desire to learn more about this difficult topic, I believe new insight will be shed.
