Two papabili, Tagle and Parolin, accused of being weak on sex abuse

VATICAN CITY – The Philippine church has issued a response to accusations made on Friday in a news conference in Rome, in which two leaders of a prominent global watchdog group on the Catholic abuse crisis were critiquing the handling of child sex crimes in the Church by the two top papal contenders, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle. 

 The speakers included WHO Attorney Michal Gatchalian, the only clergy abuse survivor from the Philippines to come forward by name, Fr. Shay Cullen, a whistleblower priest and renowned child advocate from the Philippines, Frances Bermido, Jr., President of the Preda Foundation, Anne Barrett Doyle - Longtime co-director of BishopAccountability.org and Dr. Ann Hagan Webb - Psychologist specializing in clergy abuse survivors. They had come together to discuss in particular Cardinal Parolin's suppression of abuse information in his role as Vatican's secretary of state, as well as Cardinal Tagle's response to abuse. "It can be fairly said that no church official in the world has played as central a role in keeping sex crimes internal to the Vatican than Cardinal Parolin," they said. 

 Tagle, the most powerful global figure ever to emerge from the Philippine church, speaks eloquently about healing the wounds of clergy sex abuse victims. Yet he has been ineffective in improving the plight of sex abuse victims in the Philippine church. It is an environment so hostile to victims that only one clergy sex abuse survivor has ever agreed to be identified publicly. 

 In reponse to this representitives of the Philippine Church have praised Cardinal Tagle for helping to draft abuse guidelines in 2003 and for advocating for healing victims' wounds. They also say that as a Vatican official, he is not responsible for child molestation by Philippine clergy. The statement was posted on the website of the Philippine bishops' conference on May 2, hours after our news conference. 

 It's disingenuous for Philippine bishops to imply that the world's highest ranking Filipino Catholic official is powerless to influence his brother bishops. Cardinal Tagle was hand-picked by Pope Francis for one of the Vatican's most powerful and prestigious positions. With or without formal decision-making authority, he has an enormous bully pulpit. He had and still has the ability to persuade the church hierarchy in the world's third most populous Catholic country to do the bare minimum to protect children. "Not my job" is a poor excuse for a man who would be pope.

 Cardinal Tagle speaks movingly about the wounds of victims. He weeps about their pain. But it's not clear he's done anything to make the pain stop. We have researched the Philippine abuse crisis, and found no evidence that as bishop, he removed abusers, punished complicit bystanders, or deterred other clergy from molesting children. The next pope must be a change-maker, a determined champion for children. Nothing we have found in Cardinal Tagle's record suggests that he could be that person.

Anne Barrett Doyle