The UN and advocacy groups for survivors of clergy sexual abuse have asked Pope Francis for an investigation to determine who has knowledge of sexual abuse cases involving the former Bishop of Dili, Ximenes Belo.
Anne Barrett-Doyle, from the platform online Bishop Accountability, quoted by the Associated Press (AP), called on Pope Francis to order a “full and comprehensive investigation of the Belo case, including past and current church officials, at 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 aim is to determine who would have had information about sexual abuse cases involving Ximenes Belo and when they would have been notified.
Barrett-Doyle said the Salesian superiors of Ximenes Belo, as well as Vatican officials, including Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, would be involved in the removal of the bishop suspected of sexual abuse from the Dili diocese, in East Africa. Timor ., in 2002, and on subsequent transfers.
“The Vatican’s claims that it learned of the allegations… [de abuso sexual] only failed the test in recent years. It’s totally unbelievable,” Barrett-Doyle said in an email, quoted by the AP.
United Nations (UN) spokesperson Stephane Dujarric also supported a thorough investigation.
“The allegations are really shocking and need to be fully investigated,” Dujaric told the AP.
Last week, the Vatican’s sexual abuse department said it had secretly sanctioned Ximenes Belo in 2020, banning him from contacting 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 senior ecclesiastical dignitaries to be reported internally and established a mechanism to investigate bishops who have escaped responsibility for abuse or cover-ups for decades.
However, in a brief statement after Dutch magazine De Groen Amsterdammer denounced the Ximenes Belo scandal, which named two of the alleged victims, the Vatican did not reveal what church officials might know before 2019.
Ximenes Belo won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize with fellow Timorese independence icon José Ramos-Horta, for his campaign for a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in his native country to gain independence from Indonesia.
In 2002, Ximenes suddenly resigned as head of the Catholic Church in East Timor, aged 54, two decades before the normal retirement age for bishops, on health grounds.
Ximenes Belo is currently in Portugal, where the Salesians said they welcomed him at the request of their superiors, but his whereabouts are unclear, according to some media.
There is still no indication that Pope Francis is willing to authorize an investigation similar to that of Theodore McCarrick, a former American Catholic cardinal and archbishop accused of sexual abuse.
Within East Timor’s Catholic community, there doesn’t seem to be a wave of outrage, such as among American Catholics at McCarrick.
On the contrary, in that impoverished and predominantly Catholic country, where the Church has a strong influence, many showed support for Ximenes Belo despite the accusations.
Source: DN
