Advocacy group launches Philippine database on abuse; cardinal reiterates need for accountability

(OSV News) -- An international online database of clergy who face allegations or have been convicted of child sexual abuse launched its Philippine listing Jan. 29, drawing a sharp response from the Philippine bishops' conference, which reiterated the need for efforts to hold the church accountable for abuse.

The BishopAccountability.org's new listing names 82 priests and bishops who are either Philippine nationals or foreign nationals and have faced or are facing allegations either in the Philippines or the United States, and sometimes in both countries. The listing of each accused individual is based on a compilation of media reports, court documents and/or statements from dioceses and religious orders.

Anne Barrett Doyle, a director of BishopAccountability, pointed out that there have been no convictions among the clergy who had substantiated allegations against them. While attending a conference hosted by Ending Clergy Abuse, an international network of clergy abuse survivors' groups in Quezon City in Metro Manila, she told OSV News, "The victims here are powerless."

Doyle said in the 21 years that the Waltham, Massachusetts-based group has been tracking such cases, the local church's self-policing has been "lacking" and it is "profoundly incapable of doing a good job of protecting children, unless they're under scrutiny."

In response to the launch of the database's Philippine listing, Cardinal Pablo David of Kalookan, president of the Philippine bishops' conference, emphasized the pope's directive that bishops "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."

"We welcome initiatives intended to hold people in whatever form of authority accountable, including the Church," he added in his Jan. 31 statement. "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. Admittedly, lack of accountability compromises our moral and spiritual authority."

"Please don't hesitate to file complaints against abusive clerics whether in the civil or church forums," he added.

According to Doyle, "The Philippine church has no external mechanism bearing down on it to force a degree of accountability."

"The victims don't have the power to litigate against the church here or, at least, they haven't done so," she told OSV News. "There are no prosecutorial investigations of dioceses or religious orders, like we've seen in Western countries and throughout the United States. There seems to be no appetite in the media for doing significant media investigations and reporting on this. There are strong libel laws, which make it risky to even identify a priest publicly who's been accused of child sexual abuse."

Cardinal David in his statement acknowledged the Philippine church has not always succeeded at maintaining a system of checks and balances and accountability to ensure past mistakes do not recur. And he implored the laity to help, "including our professional journalists who are our allies in the quest for truth and fact-checking and the battle against disinformation."

Columban Father Shay Cullen, the head of PREDA, a Philippine-based foundation for abused children lauded the cardinal's message. PREDA stands for People’s Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance.

"(He) has made a very beautiful statement, advising that all of these clerical suspects should be referred to the civil authorities, as well as church authorities," Father Cullen told OSV News.

"The database, of course, is just telling the truth," he added. "It is only accounting the very fact and the reality that's right there on the record. And that's to challenge all the bishops."

Father Cullen, 81, of Ireland, has been nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize and won multiple international human rights awards for his decades of work as an advocate for child victims of exploitation, abuse and sex trafficking, which figured heavily in the 1991 removal of American military bases from the Philippines.

In the "previous 50 years when the U.S. Navy occupied the huge Subic Bay naval base and Olongapo City, (they) became a U.S. recreation sex land where women and child exploitation was rampant. Sex bars and brothels proliferated," Father Cullen wrote of one of his earliest advocacy efforts in a 2023 UCA News opinion piece.

He said in 2024 his organization secured 27 convictions in more recent cases against abusers and rapists who received life sentences. But he said it has been difficult trying to get charges to stick in domestic clergy abuse cases. He cited a current case that a judge said would take three to four years.

"But you see, the priest of the diocese went to the family of the child victim and tried to persuade them to drop the case and offered a bribe of college education for the victim. That's a very strong example of what's going on in many, many cases," he said.

Father Cullen noted Cardinal David's prominence as one of a handful of bishops who spoke out against the anti-drug campaign that saw about 20,000 ordinary citizens killed in government sanctioned orders during President Rodrigo Duterte's administration from 2016-2022.

But he cautioned, "There will be a big pushback."

He said persevering in faith is the way to stand firm against that pushback -- and Father Cullen added that that is Cardinal David's strategy.

??"When it comes to human dignity and human rights and following Jesus to be imitated ... (Jesus) has made it very clear that doing good, loving neighbor, working for justice, standing with the poor and the oppressed, and uplifting them and opposing evil and believing we will win," is the best way to "overcome evil," said Father Cullen.

"That is faith. That is believing. And in my life that faith moving mountains of evil, and achieving good, has been very ... positive and kept me going for 54 years in all of this," he added.