Nuns ‘sex slaves’ scandal fresh blow to Catholic church

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis’s public admission that priests have used nuns as "sexual slaves" -- and may still be doing so -- marks a new chapter in the abuse crisis rocking the Catholic church.

"It is the first time that the pope, but also the church as an institution, has publicly admitted this abuse is taking place, and that’s hugely important," Lucetta Scaraffia, editor of the Vatican’s women’s magazine, told AFP on Wednesday.

The pontiff on Tuesday said Catholic priests and bishops had been sexually abusing nuns, and that his predecessor Benedict XVI had had "the courage" to dissolve a religious order of women because of "sexual slavery on the part of priests and the founder"

That community admitted in 2013 that the priest who founded it had behaved "in ways that went against chastity" with several women in the order, according to French Catholic newspaper La Croix. When pope Francis talked about "sexual slavery" he meant "manipulation, a type of abuse of power also present in sexual abuse", said the Vatican on Tuesday.