Two top contenders to become next pope face allegations of mishandling child sex abuse cases

Two top contenders to replace Pope Francis have been reportedly accused of mishandling child sexual abuse claims.

Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle cannot be trusted to protect children from abuse, according to a campaign group.

The American watchdog Bishop Accountability claims the pair withheld incriminating church records, making them unfit to tackle the issue, which is one of the top challenges facing the Catholic Church today.

Cardinals will travel from across the globe to vote for the next pontiff in the conclave starting on Wednesday. 

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of Bishop Accountability, spoke to a press conference just outside the Vatican walls on Friday.

She said: ‘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.’

‘No church official in the world has withheld as many documents about abuse to civil authorities as Cardinal Parolin,’ added Doyle, whose group tracks information on such cases.

She argued that all requests for information about priests from other countries who were accused of abuse have gone through Parolin’s office since 2013, while he has been the Vatican’s secretary of state, and were often blocked.

Doyle cited numerous examples of ‘obstruction of justice’ around the world, including Chile, Britain, and Poland, for which she called Parolin ultimately responsible.

In one example, a four-year investigation begun in 2013 by a royal commission in Australia counted 4,400 abused children and 1,100 clerics. 

She said that when asked for documents, the Vatican produced files on just two priests.

When a British abuse commission asked in 2018 and 2019 for information about cases in the English Benedictine Congregation, ‘Cardinal Parolin refused, saying that the Holy See [the central governing body of the Church] did not exercise jurisdiction over individuals and institutions outside the Vatican’, Doyle said.

Doyle then discussed the group’s findings on Tagle, the former Archbishop of Manila.

She accused him of doing nothing to pull the church in the Philippines out of the ‘dark ages’ of abuse. She noted that guidelines dealing with sexual abuse cases have not been published on the webpages of the Manila archdiocese nor the bishops’.

‘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?’ asked Doyle.

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On Saturday evening the Philippines’ governing body of Catholic bishops issued a rare statement on clerical sexual abuse, defending Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle on the issue days before the process to elect a new pope gets underway.

The statement reads: ‘Addressing allegations of misconduct by clergy rests with the respective diocesan bishops or religious superiors’ and not with Tagle.

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‘Since his appointment to a full-time position in the Roman Curia, Cardinal Tagle no longer holds direct authority over any diocese in the Philippines.’