Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández, chosen by Pope Francis to move the Vatican office that ensures doctrinal orthodoxy, conceded Sunday he made mistakes in handling a 2019 case of a priest accused of sexual abuse of minors.
The case has drawn allegations by critics that Fernández tried to guard the priest, a charge that he has denied.
“Today I will surely act very in another way and positively my performance was insufficient,” he told The Associated Press during an interview after celebrating Mass in La Plata, about 70 kilometers (40 miles) south of Buenos Aires.
Pope Francis appointed Fernández on July 1 to move the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which guarantees doctrinal orthodoxy and one among whose areas involves handling sexual abuse allegations brought against clergy. He was also named a cardinal Sunday together with about two dozen religious.
BishopAccountability.org, a U.S. group that maintains a web-based archive on abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, has questioned the archbishop’s appointment as head of the dicastery. It said Fernández refused to imagine allegations by minors who accused Eduardo Lorenzo, a priest within the archdiocese of La Plata, of abusing them.
At the tip of 2019, hours after learning that an Argentine judge had ordered his arrest for the alleged sexual abuse of 5 children, Lorenzo was found dead in what was ruled a suicide.
In response to the U.S. organization’s criticism, Fernández told AP in a press release Monday that he had never said he didn’t imagine the allegations and that he took steps to distance the priest from the alleged victims.
On Sunday, though, he was more self-critical of his actions, which he attributed to arriving in 2018 as archbishop of La Plata “with none experience in one other diocese.” He said church procedures for coping with allegations of abuse committed by clerics “were less clear” at the moment.
“I cannot say that I even have committed a criminal offense or something against what was established at the moment, but that I might have been a significantly better father, significantly better pastor and far more efficient. That, after all, I recognize,” he told AP.
“With every little thing I say it is evident that I didn’t act in one of the simplest ways,” he said.
Fernández said he must have “treated the victims more closely” and acted “a little bit earlier” in removing Lorenzo from his duties as a priest while he was being investigated.
“I used to be waiting to see how justice acted, what the prosecutor did, what objective elements got here to us,” he said.
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, expressed disbelief on the archbishop’s words.
“He declares himself bewildered, but he’s a complicated and educated man,” she said, adding that “claims of ignorance aren’t credible.”
Barrett Doyle said Fernández “repeatedly” demonsttrated support for the priest.
“If Archbishop Fernández finally regretted his handling of this case, why did he never reach out to Lorenzo’s victims?” she said.
A detailed adviser to the Argentine-born pontiff, Fernández has been nicknamed the “pope’s theologian″ because he’s widely believed to have helped creator a few of Francis’ most vital documents. Francis named him to move the La Plata archdiocese in 2018.
Fernández said he had spoken to the pope in regards to the criticism received about Lorenzo’s case and was told: “You explain reality because it was.”
