Zero tolerance
Since his election on May 8, Pope Leo XIV has condemned clerical child sexual abuse and called for zero tolerance. But for now, he is stymied, like his predecessor Francis was, by clerics in the Vatican bureaucracy who protect child-abusing pedophile priests.
Leo voiced his condemnation in a statement read on June 20 on the occasion of the staging of a play on child abuse in Lima, Peru, where he was a missionary for two decades. That play was written by Peruvian investigative journalist Paola Ugaz Cruz, who exposed the Peru-based Catholic movement Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, where it was alleged that child sexual abuse was prevalent.
Pope Leo thanked Cruz and others for their perseverance, “even when they were ignored, discredited or even persecuted judicially.” Such is frequently the fate of journalists that expose child sexual abuse, as Cruz found out.
The pope also defended independent journalists who fight for human rights.
“Wherever a journalist is silenced, the democratic soul of a nation is weakened,” he said.
He has called press freedom an “inalienable common good,” saying the moral fight for justice by victims and journalists “is also the struggle of the Church.”
“It is urgent to root the whole Church in a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse — neither of power or authority nor abuse of conscience, spiritual or sexual abuse,” Pope Leo said.
“This culture will only be authentic if it is born of active vigilance, of transparent processes and sincere listening to those who have been hurt. For this, we need journalists,” he added.
In the Philippines, many journalists have been harassed, jailed and even killed. Reporters Without Borders has said the country had 107 journalists killed between 2003 and 2022; the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded 159 Filipino media workers killed from 1992 to 2024; and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines reported that about 199 journalists have been killed since 1986. When people in power want to stifle and distort the truth, they go after journalists and try to discredit them with false allegations.
The anniversary of the closure of the American base in Olongapo City on Nov. 24 celebrates, in part, a media campaign against child abuse that Preda began. After exposing the widespread child sexual abuse in Olongapo by local and United States Navy personnel in the 1980s that was tolerated by the local government, this writer was falsely accused of defaming the city and put on trial to be deported, but fought and won that case. Preda then started a campaign to end female and child abuse by calling for the closure and conversion of the US bases that was opposed by city authorities.
United Nations Children’s Fund research in the Philippines in 2015 indicated widespread incidents of violence and abuse against children as young as 3 years old. About three in five respondents suffered different kinds of physical and verbal abuse during childhood, mostly in their home. The research found that 22.4 percent of all respondents aged 13 to 24 experienced some form of sexual abuse; among those aged 13 to 17, the figure was 17.1 percent. Surprisingly, more boys (22.1 percent) than girls (15.9 percent) said they had suffered sexual violence.
The Philippines has also become the global hub of online child sex abuse, where pedophiles, mostly foreigners, pay to view live shows where children are being raped. Some of these foreigners come to the Philippines and rape children. These heinous crimes on the internet are facilitated by the children’s parents and relatives in exchange for money. The telcos do not block such criminal content, as if they are above the law.
Artificial intelligence-powered filters would slow their internet connections and they stand to lose money. Evidence of this is the convictions of foreign pedophiles in Europe and the US for online sexual abuse in the Philippines. The thousands of sexually abused and trafficked children suffer lifelong trauma and receive little or no help, and few ever find justice./PN
