A U.S.-based group that keeps track of how the Catholic hierarchy deals with allegations of sexual abuse by clergy says Pope Francis made a “troubling” selection in appointing an Argentine prelate to a strong Vatican office that handles such cases.
On Saturday, the Vatican announced that the pontiff had picked Monsignor Victor Manuel Fernández, who’s archbishop of La Plata, within the pope’s homeland, to go the Holy See’s watchdog office for doctrinal orthodoxy. That office’s mandate also includes handling of sex abuse allegations lodged against clergy.
BishopAccountability, which relies in Massachusetts, said in a written statement that the prelate in 2019 refused to consider victims who accused a priest within the La Plata archdiocese of sexually abusing boys.
Francis “has made a baffling and troubling selection,” the group said in statement emailed late Saturday within the United States. The statement cited what it said was Fernández’ handling of the case within the Argentine archdiocese. “In his response to allegations, he stoutly supported the accused priest and refused to consider the victims,” BishopAccountability.org said.
Telephone calls to the La Plata archdiocese office went unanswered on Sunday. The archdiocese didn’t immediately reply to an emailed request for comment from the archbishop on the criticism by BishopAccountability.org.
As prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the 60-year-old archbishop, who will take up his Vatican post in September, “may have immense power, especially in terms of judging and punishing priests who abuse children,” the U.S. group said.
A trusted adviser to the pontiff, Fernández has been nicknamed the “pope’s theologian″ since he’s widely believed to have helped writer a few of Francis’ most vital documents.
Among the duties of the dicastery, or department, are evaluating and processing allegations by victims that they were abused by pedophile priests.
According to BishopAccountability.org, on account of his handling of the 2019 allegations, Fernández “must have been investigated, not promoted to certainly one of the best posts in the worldwide church. Nothing about his performance suggests that he’s fit to guide the pope’s battle against abuse and cover-up.”
Francis has pledged that the Catholic Church will adhere to a zero-tolerance policy on clergy sexual abuse.
BishopAccountablity.org said after a baby abuse grievance against the La Plata parish priest from 2008 resurfaced in 2019, the archbishop, who was named by Francis in 2018 to go the archdiocese, published a letter from the priest on the archdiocese’s website wherein the clergyman denied the allegation, contending he was slandered.
BishopAccountability.org lamented that the archbishop later went to that parish and concelebrated a Mass with the accused priest.
Despite more allegations surfacing against the priest, Fernández allowed him to proceed in his parish ministry, the group said, until the archbishop removed him from the post citing the priest’s request to go away for “health reasons.” In December 2019, the priest took his own life hours after a judge issued an order for his arrest, based on the group and Argentine media reports on the time.
BishopAccountability.org is a 20-year-old group that maintains a web-based archive documenting the worldwide abuse crisis within the Roman Catholic Church.
