U.S. watchdog launches Philippines database of clergy accused of abuse against minors

The Minor Basilica and Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Manila, Philippines. / Credit: Kagejuni001, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Rome Newsroom, Jan 29, 2025 / 11:45 am (CNA).

U.S.-based abuse watchdog BishopAccountability.org during a Jan. 29 press conference held in Manila, Philippines, identified 82 priests and brothers with ties to the Philippines who have been publicly accused of abusing minors.

The U.S. group’s co-director, Anne Barrett Doyle, launched the online database in the Philippines, the world’s third-largest Catholic country, on Wednesday, urging the country’s bishops to take action against those accused of sex abuse.

“Philippine bishops feel entitled to their silence. They feel entitled to withhold information about sexual violence toward minors. They feel entitled to defend accused priests,” Doyle said at the press conference.

“What we hope to achieve is to raise awareness,” she said. “Secrecy only benefits the perpetrators. Secrecy equals complicity.”

The database — which collects data from news reports, publicly filed court documents, Church announcements, and other public sources — includes details of Filipino priests accused of sexually abusing minors in the Philippines; Filipino priests who are accused of sexually abusing minors while working in the U.S.; and accused clergy from the U.S., Australia, and Ireland who served part of their priesthood in the Philippines.

Doyle is calling for Philippine prosecutors to investigate Church officials who have failed to report abuses. Associated Press reported none of the 82 clergy members, including seven bishops, listed in the database have been convicted in any civil court. 

Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David said the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has established the Office on the Protection of Minors headed by Archbishop Florentino Lavarias.

“Every diocese is now required by Rome to establish its own Office for the Safeguarding of Minors and Vulnerable Adults and should have a point person who can formally receive complaints,” David responded in a Jan. 29 statement.

“Our mandate from Rome is to take the issue of accountability very seriously, especially those related to alleged abuse cases involving priests,” he added. 

The cardinal said individual bishops and religious superiors are responsible for handling complaints of abuse and taking disciplinary action against accused clergy.   

“As a conference of bishops, we merely build a consensus among ourselves about common policies to be adopted. Only Rome, represented by the nuncio, has direct disciplinary authority over individual bishops,” David said.

The Philippines database is the fifth database of accused clergy launched by BishopAccountability.org. The abuse watchdog set up its first database in the U.S. in 2005 and has since created separate databases for Argentina, Chile, and Ireland.