Author: Sreedhar Pillai
Publication: India Today.in
Date: August 31, 1986
URL:      https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/crime/story/19860831-kerala-catholic-priest-lures-girls-with-jobs-in-italy-but-they-end-up-as-nuns-in-rome-801210-1986-08-31

There is a belief in Kerala that in almost any top hospital in the world you will find a Malayalee nurse and she will in all probability be a Christian from central Travancore. Thousands of Christian girls from impoverished families in Kottayam, Idukki and Pathanamthitta districts are employed as nurses all over the world.

So when a Catholic priest told Mercy Thomas last year that he would take her to Italy to train her as a nurse, she grabbed the offer. She and six others were taken to Rome by the priest last December.

It was only after reaching Rome that the girls realised they were not going to become nurses; they would end up as nuns instead, their work confined to sweeping convent floors or cleaning stained glass windows. Their plight would not have come to light had they not managed to return to India last fortnight to expose the Catholic priest.

The priest was none other than Father Cyriac Puthenpurakal of Ettumanoor, who in the early '70s had earned notoriety for 'exporting' about 5,000 Christian girls from Kerala to the convents in Europe. The women were lured with jobs and whisked away to nunneries where they were initiated as nuns.

Puthenpurakal was arrested and paraded through the streets of Kottayam but subsequently let off and the local church suspended him for some time from his diocese. Later, the Government banned the export of Christian girls to convents abroad. But, as the case of Mercy and her companions has revealed, the trade is far from finished.

Says a prominent Bishop: "Very few European women are opting to become nuns; some convents are understaffed so they need people to run these huge nunneries and they all look to Christian girls from Kerala to do it." According to intelligence sources, the market rate in Europe for a Malayalee nun is US $2,000 per person.

Impoverished girls with basic education are approached and promised a job abroad, they are charged Rs 1,000 per head for their passports and immigration clearance, which are completed in about three months, and then they leave the country as students going abroad for "theological studies".

Once in Rome, Madrid or Vienna, they are dumped at some nunnery, where they are initiated. Said Jessy Rothasis, who was lucky enough to escape and come back to Kottayam: "They said we would be initiated as nuns in Rome, but finally we were all just glorified domestic servants who ended up washing toilets, scrubbing floors and cleaning the gigantic windows of some convent or the other."

Molly Antony of Thiruvalla, who was taken by Puthenpurakal in the '70s, is today a senior sister in Rome in charge of recruits from Kerala. Says Jessy: "Sister Molly warned us not to rebel as they had paid for us in dollars to Father Puthenpurakal. It was then that we realised the mistake we had made." Jessy and Mercy feigned sickness for over three months before they were sent back home through Puthenpurakal who had come back to Italy with new recruits.

Both are ashamed to speak of their Italian nightmare. Says Mercy: "We were taken for a ride by Puthenpurakal and the publicity generated by this is bad for us. After all, the orthodox Catholics believe that there is nothing better than being initiated into sisterhood."

Meanwhile, Puthenpurakal has gone underground. At his large Ettumanoor estate, there is not even a caretaker to look after the empty buildings. Puthenpurakal had constructed a huge building to start a nursing home there. Today, it is locked up.

The Catholic church seems immune to his covert activities and the church authorities refuse to talk about him. Puthenpurakal's brother Pappachan, a small-time farmer who has overnight become a landlord, told India Today: "It is a baseless charge against Puthenpurakal. For the last few months he has been in Rome and has recently presented the Pope with an image of Christ, an art-work from Kerala."

But according to reliable sources, the intelligence agencies have launched a manhunt for Puthenpurakal. They recently raided the office in Cochin of Anna Maria Travels and Tours, an unrecognised travel agency that arranged the tickets for all the 20 girls taken abroad by Puthenpurakal.

M.J. Francis, the owner of the travel agency which was started last December "mainly for making arrangements for missionaries to travel abroad", has been repeatedly questioned by intelligence agencies. All the tickets issued to the girls were one-way student tickets. When contacted, Francis said: "I hardly know Father Puthenpurakal."