The UN and advocacy groups for clergy sexual abuse survivors have asked Pope Francis for an investigation to determine who has knowledge of sexual abuse cases that could involve former Dili Bishop Ximenes Belo.
Anne Barrett-Doyle of the Bishop Accountability online platform, quoted by the Associated Press (AP), called on Pope Francis to order a “full and comprehensive investigation of the Belo case, including past and present church officials, from all levels and departments. [departamentos do governo da Igreja Católica que compõem a Cúria Romana] and from all relevant regions, from East Timor to Portugal and from Rome to Mozambique.”
The objective is to determine who would have had information about cases of sexual abuse that could involve Ximenes Belo and when they would have been informed. Barrett-Doyle said that the Salesian superiors of Ximenes Belo, as well as Vatican officials, including Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, were involved in the dismissal of the bishop suspected of sexual abuse of the diocese of Dili, in East Timor. . ., in 2002, and in subsequent transfers.
“The Vatican’s claims that it learned of the accusations [de abuso sexual] only in recent years does it fail the test. It’s totally implausible,” Barrett-Doyle said in an email, quoted by the AP.
United Nations (UN) spokesman Stephane Dujarric also supported a thorough investigation. “The allegations are truly shocking and need to be thoroughly investigated,” Dujaric told the AP.
Last week, the Vatican’s sexual abuse department said it had secretly sanctioned Ximenes Belo in 2020, barring him from having contact with minors or East Timor, based on allegations of misconduct that reached Rome in 2019.
That year, Pope Francis passed a new church law that required all cases involving high-ranking church dignitaries to be reported internally and established a mechanism to investigate bishops, who have escaped responsibility for abuse or cover-up for decades. . However, in a brief statement after the Dutch magazine De Groen Amsterdammer exposed the scandal surrounding Ximenes Belo, citing two of his alleged victims, the Vatican did not reveal what church officials might know before 2019.
Ximenes Belo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 together with the also Timorese independence icon José Ramos-Horta, for campaigning for a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in that country, where he comes from, to obtain independence from Indonesia. In 2002, Ximenes abruptly resigned as head of the Catholic Church in East Timor at age 54, two decades before the normal retirement age for bishops, citing health reasons.
Ximenes Belo is currently in Portugal, where the Salesians said they took him in at the request of his superiors, but his whereabouts are unclear, according to some media.
There is no sign yet that Pope Francis is willing to authorize an investigation similar to that of Theodore McCarrick, a former US Catholic cardinal and archbishop accused of sexual abuse. Within the East Timorese Catholic community there does not seem to be a wave of outrage, as there was among American Catholics over McCarrick.
On the contrary, in that impoverished and predominantly Catholic country, where the Church has a strong influence, many showed their support for Ximenes Belo, despite the denunciations.
Source: Observadora
