CEBU CITY (PHILIPPINES)
The Pillar [Washington DC]
February 2, 2025
By Jason Abellaneda Baguia
The head of the Philippines bishops’ conference urged Catholics on Friday to report sexual abuse to civil or ecclesiastical authorities, after a victims’ advocacy group published reports of abuse against clergy and religious in the country this week.
While the cardinal’s remarks were meant to demonstrate a commitment to addressing clerical sexual abuse, they are likely to spark controversy among victims’ advocates, who say that ecclesiastical officials should urge potential cases always be reported directly to law enforcement.
In a Jan. 31 statement, Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David also asked Filipinos to help bring abuse perpetrators to justice, adding that this would support Pope Francis’ vision of synodality in the Catholic Church.
“We welcome initiatives intended to hold people in whatever form of authority accountable, including the Church. This is part of the pope’s call for a more synodal Church. The Church, being a human institution, is not exempt from sin and corruption,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president said.
“Please don’t hesitate to file complaints against abusive clerics whether in the civil or Church forums.”
“Of course we’re not always successful in this regard and we need the help and participation of our lay people, including our professional journalists who are our allies in the quest for truth and fact-checking and the battle against disinformation.”
David’s announcement contrasts with situations in countries such as Germany, Portugal, and Italy, where Catholic bishops have opened diocesan archives to independent auditors they have commissioned to document abuse cases.
And victims’ advocacy experts in the Philippines are also likely to criticize David’s seeming to make equivalent the possibilities of reporting possible abuse to either police or Church leaders.
U.S. bishops in recent years have emphasized that victims — or those with knowledge of abuse — should always contact police, regardless of whether they also contact ecclesiastical authorities.
Still, in their 2016 guidelines for dealing with allegations of abuse leveled against clergy, Philippine bishops had stipulated that criminal investigations should not exclude appropriate canonical investigation of abuse or misconduct, regardless of the outcome.
“The pendency of criminal action against a priest shall not prejudice appropriate canonical processes against him. Exoneration before the organs and agencies of State does not dispense the bishop from conducting a thorough investigation of allegations and, either through administrative or judicial proceedings, meting out the appropriate penalty, when warranted on the erring priest. In like manner, a resolution or judgment of civil forums dismissing or acquitting a member of the clergy shall not preclude a complementary and separate investigation through the appropriate ecclesiastical forum for the purposes of addressing church discipline, undertaken with full canonical respect for the office and the rights that a priest may enjoy. At the same time, the bishop shall see that the priest receives appropriate spiritual guidance and that he receives the benefit of legal representation and counsel,” the guidelines said.
In his statement this week, Cardinal David stressed the need for greater cooperation between dioceses of different countries to ensure that Filipino priests who are accused abroad do not escape accountability by returning to the Philippines.
“It’s important that the local bishops to whom they are incardinated in the States should inform us bishops in the Philippines about such cases so that we can take appropriate action if they hide in our dioceses or even attempt to engage in ministry in the Philippines even if they are suspended in the U.S.,” he said.
David was responding to the Jan. 29 publication by victims’ advocacy group BishopAccountability.org of records of 82 priests and religious brothers linked to the Philippines who were publicly accused of sexual abuse.
David, who leads the Kalookan diocese, was one of three Philippine bishops — along with Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma and San Carlos Bishop Gerardo Alminaza — who released statements after the database’s launch.
Reviewed by The Pillar, the first 25 entries in the database identifies seven priests who were penalized by their respective bishops with suspension or expulsion from the priesthood. Three others were delisted from diocesan rosters, listed by a diocese as credibly accused, or denounced to their diocese of origin in the Philippines.
Two priests were convicted abroad, with one released on probation. Three were acquitted by civil courts. Two settled their cases out of court. One is listed as a bishop emeritus. One is in active ministry. Six are dead.
In his statement, David said that Pope Francis would be vigilant about censuring bishops who engaged in cover ups or negligence about abuse reports.
“Pope Francis has been more decisive in his moves to impose disciplinary action on us bishops if he finds evidence that we’re not even lifting a finger to discipline our erring priests,” he said.
“He has been insistent [on] putting up structures of check[s] and balance[s] and accountability to prevent past mistakes from happening again.”
“He expects bishops to make sure all our Church institutions are safe spaces, especially for minors and vulnerable adults. If a bishop cannot discipline his erring priests or hold them accountable, he may end up getting disciplined himself by the pope upon the recommendation of the Dicastery for Bishops.”
While many victims’ advocates have criticized the Vatican’s approach to episcopal misconduct or neglect,
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In a Jan. 30 statement, Archbishop Jose Palma said three of the 10 priests tied to the Cebu archdiocese on the BishopAccountability.org list were “incardinated in the archdiocese and have already been reintegrated in active ministry today.”
But he said this only happened “because they have gone through the required legal and canonical processes in the past and have been determined by competent civil and ecclesiastical authorities as fit to return to active ministry but with continued guidance and supervision.”
Incardination is the formal affiliation of a cleric to a specific diocese or religious community that places him under the authority of an ordinary, normally a bishop.
Palma said that another listed priest — incardinated in another diocese — is in Cebu to go through an “ongoing renewal program” on the orders of his bishop and has been “fully cooperative with civil and ecclesiastical authorities that are overseeing his situation.”
Other accused priests, according to the archbishop, were also sent to Cebu by their respective religious congregations for processes of renewal supervised by civil and church authorities and were no longer part of the Cebu archdiocese. Palma said one priest was dismissed from the priesthood. Another is dead.
The Cebu archdiocese is developing guidelines for yearly training in safeguarding that clergy will be required to attend to continue in active ministry, Palma said.
Bishop Alminaza said two accused priests of the San Carlos diocese — Fr. Conrado Mantac and Fr. Aron Buenacosa — were on administrative leave while under investigation by the Diocesan Safeguarding Office.
The bishop pledged cooperation with civil authorities handling the accusations.
“Both institutional processes (legal and ecclesiastical) are being carried out to protect the victims and implement proper disciplinary sanctions with the accused,” he said.
The bishop initially added a remark likely to cause some controversy among victims’ advocates: that an accused priest’s concelebration at some liturgical events should not be taken to mean that he has returned to active ministry.
Seemingly facing the prospect of pushback, Alminaza subsequently apologized for having previously allowed Mantac and Buenacosa to celebrate Mass publicly after they were accused.
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CBCP News released Cardinal David’s statement as members of the worldwide alliance Ending Clergy Abuse gathered in the Philippine capital Manila for a “Zero Tolerance” summit from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2.
The network that includes BishopAccountability.org has been lobbying for Pope Francis to tighten canonical consequences for clergy perpetrators of sex abuse and bishops who cover up the wrongdoing.
Ending Clergy Abuse, which is led by several survivors of clergy sexual abuse, also demand that the Church publish a global registry of credibly accused clergy and provide victims with reparations.
Speakers at the Manila summit, according to CBCP News, include BishopAccountability.org co-director Anne Barrett Doyle, senior researcher and database manager Suzy Nauman, and Prof. Gabriel Dy-Liacco.
A Filipino psychotherapist, Dy-Liacco, sits on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which is headed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Boston’s archbishop emeritus.
Doyle, the Associated Press reported, criticized the Philippine bishops for what she deemed was their sense of entitlement in the face of allegations of clergy sex abuse. She said their silence encouraged abuse by clerics and called on government prosecutors to bring justice to victims, adding that their list of 82 accused was just the tip of the iceberg.
In 2002, the Philippine bishops in a message apologized for sexual misconduct committed by priests and said they were developing better protocols for responding to abuse allegations.
Between 1982 and 2002, of the 7,000 priests who served in the Philippines, 200 were found to have committed abuse, said the future cardinal, Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo who was CBCP president in 2002.
In 2016, the bishops’ national tribunal heard 14 cases of pedophilia allegedly committed by priests, according to a Vera Files report.
The tribunal used protocols produced after the bishops’ 2002 apology, said Oscar Cruz, the archbishop emeritus of Lingayen-Dagupan who died in 2020.
Cruz, also a former CBCP president, said the 2016 number was only a fraction of the total. Courts of first instance processed cases in each diocese, so not all of them reached the national tribunal.
Archbishop Cruz was the author of a book titled “CBCP Guidelines on Sexual Abuse and Misconduct: A Critique.”
Also in 2016, the Philippines’ bishops, under the leadership of Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, issued an exhortation on pastoral care and the protection of minors, which featured tighter guidelines and norms for the protection of children from sexual assault.
These included grounding in the diocese priests who are under preliminary state investigation so that they may not evade court proceedings, forbidding bishops to make statements on the guilt or innocence of accused priests absent a thorough investigation, dismissing seminarians who were found to have abused their colleagues, ensuring that accused clerics face a canonical process even if a civil one has been completed, and prohibiting the employment of minors for church or convent maintenance.
Introducing these norms, Archbishop Villegas said: “With sadness, shame and contrition, we must acknowledge that some members of the clergy have committed these offenses, not only in egregious violation of the sacred promises of their Ordination, but in most blatant contravention of the Lord Jesus’ own strict command that children are not only to be welcomed with affection, but that every care must be taken to put no stumbling block in their way.”
In 2018, leading Filipino clergymen, speaking to student journalists of the Dominican-administered University of Santo Tomas, called for improved action in combating clergy sex abuse. Their calls coincided with another pastoral statement, this time under the new bishops’ president, Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles.
“The present painful situation,” Valles said, “is a good occasion for us bishops to revisit and review the existing guidelines that we have for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults, and with renewed resolve and commitment to implement them and not cover them up.”
Following Pope Francis’ issuance of the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi in 2019, dioceses across the Philippines established offices for safeguarding minors and vulnerable adults.