A FORMER nun has shocked Catholics in Kerala with her tell-all autobiography when she revealed alleged sexual abuses while she was in the church in Thrissur.

Sister Jesme, 52, said society has 'every right' to know what is happening to the nuns, reported Times Of India.

The English professor and later, the principal of a church-run college, quit the convent last year after what she called 30 years of 'sufferings and struggles'.

Her memoirs in Malayalam, entitled 'Amen', has been selling well since it was released last week.

In it, she told of how she discovered priests were forcing novices to have sex with them.

She also alleged secret homosexual relationships among the nuns and that at one point, she was forced into such a relationship by another nun who told her she preferred this kind of arrangement as it ruled out the possibility of pregnancy.

Sister Jesme said described how deeply disappointed and disillusioned she was after choosing the religious vocation at a young age.

She said: 'I wanted an outlet for my experiences of my trauma... Society has every right to know what is happening.'

Suffered

Denying accusations of sensationalism for cheap publicity, she said: 'I did not want to make this book controversial. I want to express my feelings and to explain what happened to me... I want people to know how I have suffered.'

Sister Jesme also claimed that senior nuns tried to have her committed to a mental institution after she spoke out against them.

According to Britain's The Independent, she wrote in her book that while travelling through Bangalore, she was once directed to stay with a priest who took her to a garden 'and showed me several pairs cuddling behind trees'.

She also wrote: 'He also gave me a sermon on the necessity of physical love and described the illicit affairs that certain bishops and priests had.'

The priest allegedly took her to his home, stripped off his clothes and ordered her to do the same.

A spokesman for the Syro-Malabar order of the Catholic Church, Dr Paul Thelakkat, dismissed Sister Jesme's allegations as a 'book of trivialities'.

'It's her experiences, but these are things that might creep into a society of communal living,' he said.

Asked if the church would be shocked by the allegations, he replied: 'Absolutely not. The church knows about these things.'

This story was first published in The New Paper.