Justice and Forgiveness Confront Each Other in Court
Pittsburgh’s Action 4 News, Beaver, PA – An 85-year-old nun who has spent her entire life helping others while living out her vow of chastity, has forgiven the teenage man who raped her last December.
The victim testified at a preliminary hearing that she was grabbed, punched, choked and ultimately raped, and she told the magistrate she thought she was going to die. She survived the attack by 19-year-old Andrew Bullock who admitted to targeting the woman behind St. Titus Church in Aliquippa, PA.
The Sisters of St. Joseph nun wrote a Victim Impact Statement that was read in court at Bullock’s sentencing hearing on Wednesday. In the statement, the nun said she was asked by the media if she could forgive her attacker. Her response, she wrote, was: “My thought-out answer to the question was and had to be: ‘Of course he is forgiven.’ ”
The nun referred to Bullock by his first name and called him “my brother.” She said they should both “love one another and forgive one another. And, this I do, Andrew. . .”
The judge, who said that he had not seen such depravity in all his 42 years in the criminal court system, sentenced Bullock to 18 – 37 years in state prison.
Read the story: “Elderly nun’s rapist gets prison sentence, forgiveness”
Watch the video: “Nun’s rapist gets prison time from judge, forgiveness from victim”
