PHILIPPINES
Preda
June 10, 2013 ·
Catholic bishops in the Philippines are covering up “rampant sexual abuse of children by the clergy,” said a missionary priest who has been working with prostituted children for the past four decades.
“We have these bishops who have been covering up so much of this abuse, and we know that it is still going on,” said Fr. Shay Cullen, an Irish priest and founder of the People’s Recovery Empowerment Development Assistance Foundation.
Cullen, a member of the Missionary Society of St Columban who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times, told ucanews.com that the fact that clergy sex abuse cases in the Philippines is not exposed is “a big problem.”
A 2004 report by the non-government group Catholics for Free Choice and Likhaan stated that no priest accused of sexual abuse in the Philippines has been successfully prosecuted.
Most of the clergy accused of sexual abuse settled cases out of court, were acquitted, or moved to other parishes by their bishops. There were also priests with pending court cases who were quietly reinstated to pastoral duties, the report said.
In 2002, the Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines apologized for the reported sexual abuses, including adultery, homosexuality and child abuse by at least 200 priests over the past 20 years.
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