Institutional Power and Sexual Violence Against Nuns in the Catholic Church

Sexual violence by Catholic clergy against adults remains largely overlooked in public debate and Church communications. Drawing on the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) in France, this article analyzes 22 in-depth interviews with Catholic nuns and lay women who reported sexual violence or other abuses of power by male clerics. Our findings show how community rules of enclosure, poverty, and obedience, combined with a gendered hierarchy between priests and nuns, organize dependence, isolation, and silence. We argue that sexual violence against nuns is better understood as a product of institutional power relations than of individual deviance.