As abuse crisis expands to Global South, Vatican has questions to answer
The abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is beginning to impact the Global South, with news this week that Nobel Peace Prize winner and East Timor independence hero, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, had restrictions imposed on him by the Vatican following allegations that he abused boys in the 1990s. As reported by the Associated Press, the admission came after Dutch magazine – De Groene Amsterdammer – first exposed the claims, citing two alleged victims and reporting there were others who had not come forward. We now know the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was involved in the case as of 2019, that the Vatican imposed restrictions in 2020, and that these restrictions were “modified and reinforced” in 2021.
The restrictions included limitations on Belo’s movements and the exercise of his ministry, with a prohibition on him having voluntary contact with minors or contact with East Timor. Belo now resides in Portugal and is not allowed to travel to his home country without permission from the Vatican. However, the Vatican has so far provided no explanation as to why St. John Paul II allowed Belo to resign as head of the Church in East Timor two decades ago, and why Church authorities allowed him to be sent to Mozambique, where he continued to work with minors.
That Belo is still a Salesian bishop and listed in the Vatican yearbook will raise questions about the Vatican’s response, as well as perhaps reopening the debate about priestly celibacy at a time of protest on the matter. The Portuguese Salesians apparently took Belo in at the request of their superiors after he left East Timor, yet reports suggest that Belo also abused boys in the 1980s before he became a bishop when he worked at an education establishment run by the Salesians.
In 2019, Pope Francis passed a law requiring all misconduct against bishops to be reported internally, and providing a mechanism to investigate such claims. The Vatican will still however face accusations of covering up the incidents to avoid any bad press. For a start, Belo resigned from his diocese 20 years ago, and it is unclear whether departments of the Roman Curia other than the now Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith found out about the allegations before 2019. Meanwhile, Belo has not appeared to have had any canonical trial as such, and no actual punishment either. To many Catholics, this will all seem like an exercise in sweeping things under the rug more than a genuine attempt to achieve justice for abused children.
No doubt such allegations will also ignite fresh debate about celibacy, something of a hot topic of late. But the bigger issue will surely be about what the Vatican – or indeed local clerics – knew over the last 20-30 years. This will all raise uncomfortable questions at a time of growing engagement with the laity and demands for serious reform. Finally, while the abuse scandal has been heavily focused on the Global North, it is becoming clear that similar abuse has been taking place in the Global South. If so, the Vatican is likely to have to brace for a slew of fresh allegations in countries where high esteem for the clergy likely helped cover up abuse for longer, with questions about what senior clerics across the world and in Rome knew at any given time.
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