| No Images? Click here   By Samantha Storey and Nick BaumannHuffPost reporters Jessica Blank and Carol Kuruvilla dove into abuse allegations of nuns and Catholic sisters. Although it's rarer than abuse by priests or monks, one subject of their story, a nun named Trish Cahill, a survivor of nun abuse, believes it goes under reported. Gender stereotypes about female perpetrators of abuse make it much harder to see the broader picture.Here are Blank and Kuruvilla on how they reported their story.What was the seed of this story?Blank: The HuffPost Video team had previously made a video about a male survivor of sexual abuse. A few months later, Trish — one of the survivors of nun abuse who we ultimately featured in our story — reached out to me via Facebook, telling me she saw the male survivor video, and she had her own story to tell. Working in tandem with Carol Kuruvilla, Religion Reporter at HuffPost, we quickly realized, sexual abuse carried about by nuns is an epidemic of its own. And one that hasn’t been talked about as other abuses within the Catholic Church.As Trish’s story unfolded, she connected me with the second survivor of sexual abuse by nuns, Anne, who we also included in the piece.Reporting out sensitive issues such as abuse is challenging. Talk to us about that.The most intense part of reporting this story has been, and continues to be, the weight of responsibility both Carol and I hold as we are the medium through which these survivors’ stories are shared. With each interview question asked, and each word written for this story, Carol and I have aimed to surface these abuses with honor and with respect.Working with Trish and Anne, to make sure they felt agency over their own stories, was paramount to both Carol and me as that is a pillar of journalism and storytelling at HuffPost as it relates to reporting, particularly with extremely sensitive topics such as this one.What surprised you in the reporting process?Blank: What surprised me the most is that this is just the tip of the iceberg for victims of abusive nuns. These two women are paving the way, and breaking down the stigma for other victims to come forward. Being a survivor of sexual assault is extremely overwhelming in itself. But to also have the powerful institution of the Catholic Church to confront when admitting instances of sexual assault is even more paralyzing.Kuruvilla: I absolutely agree with Jess. It took both Trish and Anne decades to understand that the supposed “relationships” they had with these predator nuns was actually sexual abuse. The grooming that the survivors endured was thorough. But on top of that, they were fighting against a stigma that society has against female sex offenders. Jess and I learned that mental health, social work, public health and criminal justice professionals tend to think of female sex offenders as less serious offenders than males.Anne said it best herself: “You think of women as being nurturing. And you trust them more. And when it’s done gently and sweetly and they paint it to be to your benefit, you believe it.”What part of the reporting was hardest to nail down?Kuruvilla: The most challenging part was trying to understand the Catholic church’s notoriously complex hierarchy and how this impacts survivors. Who is ultimately responsible when survivors come forward with allegations? Who gets to decide what systems are in place to keep religious women’s orders accountable? When it comes to sex abuse allegations, it seemed like the dioceses generally tried to shift blame on to the religious orders and deny any liability.Diocesan officials flat out refused to answer any questions about this, so I talked to a canon lawyer about what church laws may be in place to address sexual abuse and whether these apply to nuns. I also talked to secular lawyers who have years of experience dealing with dioceses and to a national organization that represents nuns. Turns out, there’s actually not a lot of national accountability measures in place across all American religious women’s orders to specifically address nun abuse.As more survivors of nun abuse come forward, I think we’ll hopefully start to see more accountability structures take shape. But who knows? The Catholic Church is incredibly bureaucratic and tends to move really slowly towards change.Anything else you’d like to add?Blank: It’s imperative that media organizations cover abuse in a holistic manner. As we’ve learned of abuses in the Catholic Church committed by priests, it’s taken a while to shed light on abuses by nuns. This is just one example of how media organizations must be even more steadfast in diving deeper into the investigative journalism they and we do.
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