5 Sept 2025
Nuns vs the Vatican documents religious women accusing parts of the Catholic Church, including senior clerics, of sexual, spiritual and physical abuse, and shows how they were silenced when they sought justice.
Nuns vs the Vatican documents religious women accusing parts of the Catholic Church, including senior clerics, of sexual, spiritual and physical abuse, and shows how they were silenced when they sought justice. The film centres testimony from former members of the Ignatius Loyola community about alleged abuse by Jesuit priest Marko Rupnik and the Church’s internal handling of complaints.
The film reveals a governance system that privileges clerical authority and procedural containment over civil accountability and survivor voice. Testimony from survivors such as Gloria Branciani shows how vows of obedience, a culture of secrecy and canonical dispute mechanisms combined to minimise disclosures and normalise a hierarchy in which reputation outweighed welfare. The documentary shows a gap between pastoral rhetoric and institutional action: disciplinary measures were sometimes delayed, reversed or kept within institutional jurisdiction instead of being referred to civil authorities which allowed persistent impunity.
The film exposes how structures claiming spiritual authority can reproduce gendered logics that make women vulnerable to harm in male dominated institutions. Philosopher Kate Manne shows how social systems that devalue women and excuse men can lead to institutional responses can amount to secondary violence or re-traumatisation by disbelieving, downgrading or administratively sidelining survivors.
Nuns vs the Vatican points to avenues for redress and prevention. It highlights the limits of treating alleged offences primarily as matters for religious law; when serious misconduct is adjudicated internally rather than investigated independently, accountability fails. Reporting that disciplinary action was inconsistent and that cases were treated as internal matters underscores the need for binding referral protocols to civil authorities and independent oversight of ecclesial processes.
Institutional reform requires cultural work inside religious orders as well as procedural change. Testimony shows how hierarchical obedience combined with theological norms that valorise female humility and silence can be harmful. Prevention therefore must include:
Education about power dynamics;
Training for superiors in safeguarding obligations, and;
The empowerment of women within church governance...
...so complaints are heard where survivors’ interests are not subordinate to an institution's reputation. Recent appointments of women to senior roles indicate some institutional responsiveness, but personnel changes alone do not remove the need for structural safeguards and transparent dispute mechanisms.
Finally, Nuns vs the Vatican demands a rebalancing of narrative authority. This film can recover voices long trapped under institutional silence, but the film’s impact depends on translating testimony into policy: statutory investigations, public reporting, survivor-centred reparations and religious law reforms that mandate civil referral. For advocates and reformers, the film is a prompt to convert moral outrage into sustained institutional change. To replace secrecy with accountability and to ensure religious vocation is not a shield against criminal or systemic wrongdoing.
If the documentary’s central lesson is clear. Safeguarding requires both cultural transformation and legally enforceable procedures. The Church’s credibility and the wellbeing of the women who serve it depend on an honest reckoning that places survivors, not institutional reputation, at the centre of justice.
Information and support for anyone affected by sexual harm is available through the following services in Aotearoa:
· Wellington Rape Crisis – Free support for anyone affected by sexual violence. Call 04 801 8973 or visit wellingtonrapecrisis.org.nz
· WellStop – Crisis support and counselling for people affected by sexual harm. Call 0800 935 5786 or visit wellstop.org.nz
· HELP Auckland – Crisis support and counselling for survivors of sexual abuse. Call 0800 623 1700 or visit helpauckland.org.nz
· Safe to Talk / Kōrero Mai Ka Ora – 24/7 national sexual harm helpline. Call 0800 044 334, text 4334, or visit safetotalk.nz
· RespectEd Aotearoa – Prevention education and advice.