As cardinals gather at the Vatican for the conclave starting 7 May, campaigners say the Catholic Church risks electing a pope unwilling to confront one of its gravest crises: the sexual abuse of minors by priests, AFP report.
BishopAccountability.org, a watchdog group tracking clerical sex abuse, has accused the two leading papal contenders—Cardinals Pietro Parolin and Luis Antonio Tagle—of ignoring widespread abuse cases and failing to act decisively to protect children.
As cardinals gather at the Vatican for the conclave starting 7 May, campaigners say the Catholic Church risks electing a pope unwilling to confront one of its gravest crises: the sexual abuse of minors by priests, AFP report.
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, told reporters outside the Vatican that both Parolin and Tagle have deeply troubling records.
“If Cardinal Parolin becomes pope we will have a consummate secret-keeper running the Catholic Church and I think any hope of transparency around sex abuse will be dashed completely,” she said.
“No church official in the world has withheld as many documents about abuse to civil authorities as Cardinal Parolin,” she added, citing incidents in Chile, Britain, and Poland as examples of “obstruction of justice”.
Doyle referenced a four-year investigation by a royal commission in Australia, launched in 2013, which documented abuse against 4,400 children by 1,100 clerics. When asked for files, the Vatican only submitted documents on two priests.
The Vatican declined to comment on the allegations when contacted by AFP.
Turning to Cardinal Tagle, who served as Archbishop of Manila from 2011 to 2019, Doyle criticised his inaction in the Philippines, where she said the Church remains in the “dark ages” regarding sex abuse.
She noted that neither the archdiocese of Manila nor the bishops’ conference had published guidelines on abuse cases online.
“If Cardinal Tagle cannot even get his brother bishops from his home country to publish guidelines, what on earth can we expect for him to achieve as pope of a global church?” she asked.
Michal Gatchalian, a 44-year-old Filipino lawyer, shared his own abuse story via videolink, saying he was touched and groped by a “serial predator” priest at age 17.
After reporting the priest in 2002, he said he faced threats and ostracism from church members. The priest was only defrocked in recent years.
“There’s been no noticeable effort,” Gatchalian said. “We haven’t seen a proactive effort… to solve this, to prevent this. Doing nothing is still the same as covering up.”
Irish missionary priest Shay Cullen also criticised Tagle, saying: “I don’t think Cardinal Tagle is really committed and dedicated to protecting the children. We need a fighter for the rights of the child.”
Tagle’s leadership of Caritas Internationalis from 2015 to 2022 ended after a Vatican audit found “deficiencies” in management. Campaigners also raised concerns about his possible knowledge of the hiring of Belgian priest Luk Delft—a convicted child sex offender—by Caritas in the Central African Republic.
“No matter how nice a man becomes pope I don’t believe the church is yet ready to change the page on child sexual abuse,” Doyle concluded. “I’m pessimistic.”
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