[PapaBear3625]

"It's a path that we've been on. Pope Benedict had the courage to dissolve a female congregation which was at a certain level, because this slavery of women had entered it -- slavery, even to the point of sexual slavery -- on the part of clerics or the founder," the pope conceded.

If this is an order of nuns, wouldn't the founder be a nun, the Mother Superior? Are the "clerics" accused of instigating sexual slavery MALE priests, or FEMALE nuns? According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, nuns are considered clerics in Catholicism.

[pepsi_junkie]

If this is an order of nuns, wouldn't the founder be a nun, the Mother Superior? Are the "clerics" accused of instigating sexual slavery MALE priests, or FEMALE nuns?

Yes, I think you put your finger on it. He's being very careful in his choice of words here. I think he's saying that nuns are / were abusing other nuns. Basically we knew that gays utterly corrupted the priesthood, now it's confirmed they destroyed the convent too.