KOCHI: Alone and isolated, Sr Lucy Kalapura, whose expulsion from the Franciscan Clarist Congregation (FCC) was ratified by the Vatican, on Friday said she would appeal against her dismissal from the congregation. Sr Lucy told TNIE, “I deserve justice and I do not expect it from the Catholic Church any more.” Sr Lucy, who stays at Karakkamala FCC convent in Mananthavady diocese in Wayanad, is firm in her stand that she will not move out.
“They will have to use force if they want to move me out of the convent. It is not the congregation or the Catholic Church that decides when I should end my monastic life. I am confident in my actions and I have not done anything wrong. Only I can decide when to end my pledged monastic life, no one else,” she said.
Sr Lucy was ousted from the congregation for several ‘lifestyle violations’, which include learning to drive and owning a car despite being denied permission of the superior, publishing poems and supporting the protest of the nuns against rape-accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal.
Though the letter, issued by Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro, apostolic nuncio of the Vatican in India, states that if the nun is dissatisfied with the decision she can present a new recourse to the Supreme Tribunal of the Segnatura Apostolica in the Vatican, she has decided not to do so. “There is no point in further appealing to the Vatican as there will not be any positive results. I have not decided exactly what my future course of action will be,” she said.
Though Sr Lucy wants to appeal against her dismissal, she said she did not have a proper plan right now. “I will take a decision only after giving it some thought and consulting with experts, since I am alone,” she said. She also expressed her apprehension about whether her letters of appeal were reaching the authorities concerned. “I am actually in a very devastated state and I do not know if someone is targeting me for voicing my protest against Bishop Franco. Anyways, I will fight till the end for justice,” she said.