International Union of Superiors General

Loreto Sister Patricia Murray, executive director of the union, highlighted initiatives taken by the group's headquarters in Rome, particularly the creation of a Council of Canon Lawyers.

[7] In November 2018, the IUSG published a statement that called on women religious who have suffered abuse from priests or other clerics to report it to church and government authorities.

The statement further noted: “We condemn those who support the culture of silence and secrecy, often under the guise of ‘protection’ of an institution's reputation or naming it ‘part of one’s culture’.” [8] Three months later Pope Francis publicly acknowledged that nuns have accused clerics of sexual abuse in Italy, the Vatican, France, India, Latin America and Africa.

Lucette Scaraffia, a feminist intellectual and the editor in chief of Women Church World, a Vatican magazine, noted that there were nuns having abortions or giving birth to children of clerics.

In February 2022, Pope Francis said, “I invite them to fight when, in some cases, they are treated unfairly, even within the Church; when they serve so much that they are reduced to servitude — at times, by the men of the Church.”[13]