Vatican knew about Buns six years ago

BY A STAFF REPORTER
ADUTCH priest, who worked in India and Ceylon, said last week that Church authorities had known for six years that there was what he called "a scandalous trade" in young would-be novices travelling from India to European convents.
Fr. Harry Haas. of the theological school at Heerlen. said in an interview with the Catholic daily newspaper De Tijd, that he was involved in an investigation of the practice between 1964 and 1967.
He said: "Several years ago the Vatican authorities were informed about these events in reports by Cardinal Grades, Archbishop of Bombay. by the then Apostolic Delegate in New Delhi. Archbishop Knox of Melbourne: and various bishops and diplomats of India and West Germany. Fr. Haas said he was "bewildered" on learning of the story about "nun-running" in the Sunday Times of August 23. He added: "I thought that responsible authorities had taken measures long ago to stop this scandalous trade. regret that I did not start a row. At that time I tried to prevent scandal and I tried to do something by taking steps within hierarchical and diplomatic limits."
`Treated as rebels'
Fr. Haas had written an article on the situation. in co, operation with Fr. Albert Otto, S.J., a German. which appeared in 1964 in the Dutch journal Priester and Mission. He said the article "brought him only reproach. We were treated as rebels."
English translations of the article, he said. along with other reports. were sent at the time to the bishops of India. including Cardinal Gracias and Archbishop Knox. A statement issued last week by Cardinal Gracias said that at a conference in Delhi this month of the Standing Committee of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, a letter was read from the Archbishop of Freibourg concerning girls from Kerala working as nurses in some hospitals in Germany.
Cardinal Gracias said: "I referred also to a letter that I had received some years ago from Cardinal Doepfner, President of the Episcopal Conference of Germany. requesting that prospective candidates going abroad should be carefully screened from every point of view. This. I think, I had also brought to the notice of the hierarchy."
`Many doubts' The West German bishops issued a circular in 1966 signed by Cardinal Doepfner, which said there must be "innumerable doubts" about the practice of Asian girls being sent to Germany. "The shortage of labour in Germany easily leads to the temptation not to use these girls only for training, but to make up for the lack of an adequate labour force."
Fr. Sean O'Riordan, an Irish-born Redemptorist, who is Professor of Modern Theology at the Alphonsian Academy of the Lateran University, Rome. has called for a Vatican investigation into the alleged involvement of some high Vatican officials in money deals between Italian convents and Indian priests who supply girls as novices.
He said: "There are about 2.000 Keralese girls in convents in Germany, Italy, England, Ireland and the United States. Of these, at least 500 are gravely unhappy and should be sent home. Another 500. I would estimate conservatively. are not suitable to religious life . . . "There is no doubt that the Indian priests were getting money out of it. but they were not necessarily pocketing it. I would like to think that they were using it for good works in India."