The state of being extremely poor: thousands of families are living in abject poverty.
• the renunciation of the right to individual ownership of property as part of a religious vow.
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Answer:
Vow of poverty: An age-old tradition practiced by priests and nuns has been upended in Kerala
Under the Canon Law, nuns and monks must give up ancestral property. A High Court judgement challenges that.
Bindu decided to become a nun when she was 16. Eleven years later, the day she turned 27, she decided she had had enough and left the order. “As I got older, I started to question, to reason,” she said. “I figured the best way for me was out.”
But when she returned to her family in North Kerala, confident that they would welcome support her, she was in for a shock.
“Far from being on my side, they were horrified,” she said. Even her younger brothers and sisters, some of whom were unmarried, showed no sympathy. “My family said I brought shame upon them by leaving... humiliated them.”
More than half of India’s Catholic priests and nuns come from Kerala – indeed, the majority of the Indian clergy serving in other countries are also from this South Indian state. A household where a family member is a priest or a nun is held in high regard by society here. Leaving the congregation here is not seen as exercising personal choice but an act of cowardice, one that is frequently penalised by denying ex-clergy members the right to their property.
Redemption is now a possibility – in June, the Kerala High Court ruled that Christian priests and nuns must be given an equal share in the division of ancestral property despite their vow of poverty. But orders that believe the Pope to be the representative of Christianity see this judgement as directly opposing Canon Law.
This was how Bindu’s family justified their actions too: “They said because I had taken a vow of poverty when I joined the church, my share had been given to my siblings. This didn’t change even though I had left the convent.”
It was the beginning of a long struggle. Bindu had no savings because while in the convent, anything the clergy earned was to be given to their superiors. Once in the outside world, she had to survive in wretched poverty, hungry and hopeless.