Vatican Magazine Asks Church Officials To Stop Using Nuns As Servants With Little Pay

A nun cleaning a floor

 Photo courtesy: Donne, Chiesa, Mondo (1 Marz, 2018)

Nuns washing and drying clothes

Photo courtesy: Donne, Chiesa, Mondo (1 Marz, 2018)

The Vatican magazine, Donne, Chiesa, Mondo (Women, Church, World), published as a monthly supplement of the Vatican daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, in its March 2018 issue on the theme of  'women and work,' describes how priests, bishops, and cardinals in many cases treat nuns (Sisters) as menial servants often with little pay for preparing meals, doing the laundry, cleaning the household and office spaces, and performing other chores. 

There are nuns who work in schools and other institutions, but there are some others who specifically work for the members of the hierarchy (priests, bishops, and cardinals). These males with the sense and culture of clericalism, do not understand what it takes for the nuns to work for them without receiving due recognition, respect, and monetary remuneration. 

For more on this issue, please read the following:

• Stop exploiting nuns for cheap Church labor, Vatican magazine urges (March 1, 2018)
• Nuns’ spirit of service can lead to abuses, Vatican magazine, says (March 1, 2018)
• Vatican magazine denounces nuns’ servitude (March 1, 2018)
• Vatican magazine decries treatment of nuns as bishops’ servants (March 1, 2018)
• In Vatican Magazine expose, Nuns Reveals Their Economic Exploitation (March 1, 2018)
• Vatican magazine says nuns treated like indentured servants (March 1, 2018)
• Vatican Magazine tells the Church to stop using nuns as cheap labour  (March 1, 2018)
• #MeToo meets the Catholic Church as Vatican magazine slams treatment of 'exploited' nuns (March 1, 2018)
• Nuns exploited for cheap labor according to report in Vatican magazine (March 2, 2018)
• Stop using nuns as cheap labor, Vatican magazine says (March 2, 2018)
• Catholic Church's exploitation of nuns for cheap labor exposed in Vatican publication (March 2, 2018)
• Are religious sisters exploited by the Church? Three Sisters respond (March 7, 2018)
• Indian Sisters confirm Vatican magazine's 'painful truth' of exploitation (March 23, 2018)
• Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) (Vatican: May 12, 2016) [Pope Francis in 2016 spoke out on this problem and said nuns should be working in service to the Church, not servitude]
• Il lavoro (quasi) gratuito delle suore (1 Marza, 2018) [Original Italian-language article published in Donne, Chiesa, Mondo – a monthly supplementary magazine of the daily L’Osservatore Romano, published by the Vatican]