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Vatican to look into allegations of sex abuse by Timor Leste’s Belo
Asked about the report, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said, as quoted by Kyodo News, that he was aware of the report and would "look into the information".
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he Vatican has said it will investigate a report of sexual abuse allegedly committed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, as published by a Dutch magazine
On Wednesday, Dutch weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer published the report that Belo had sexually abused boys at his residence in Dili and other places in the 1980s and 1990s.
Asked about the report, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said, as quoted by Kyodo News, that he was aware of the report and would "look into the information".
Separately, Marco Sprizzi, the Vatican representative in Timor Leste told Australian media The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that the Vatican would investigate the claims the magazine made.
“Pope Francis is so much engaged in zero tolerance, so no doubt after an article like that, they are investigating and they will investigate deeply,” Sprizzi said. “I’m sure 100 percent of that.”
Belo, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his nonviolent resistance to Indonesia's 24-year occupation of his homeland and shared the prize with current Timor Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta, currently lives in Portugal.
The magazine quoted some male victims as saying that the 74-year-old priest gave the boys, who lived in extreme poverty, money after abusing them.
"We were scared to talk about it. We were scared to pass on the information," a male victim told the magazine, which started the investigation project in 2002.
The Catholic Church is very respected and influential in Timor Leste.
Belo hung up the telephone when the magazine requested an interview.
"What I want is apologies from Belo and the church. I want them to acknowledge the suffering inflicted on me and others so that this violence and abuse of power won't happen anymore," another victim said.
The international Catholic news weekly The Tablet wrote that allegations about the bishop’s past crimes, said to have been committed against often vulnerable teenage boys, including seminarians, have circulated among Church circles in Portugal for years but never made it to the press.
According to De Groene, Belo is under Vatican-imposed restrictions on travel and cannot return to Timor Leste without permission.
He has also been required to keep a low profile, but there is no information regarding an actual canonical case against him.
The magazine said it began the investigation project in 2002, when a Timorese man said a friend was sexually abused by Belo. He had been very worried about his younger brother who visited the bishop’s residence every week and he had told his mother not to allow him to go there anymore.
Later that year, in November 2002, the bishop suddenly resigned. From that moment, rumors about the alleged sexual abuse grew into a massive public secret, the weekly reported.
When Tempo Timor revealed a case against American ex-priest Richard Daschbach in February 2019, the magazine saw an opening.
Since then De Groene has been researching the case and has spoken to several victims and people with knowledge of the matter, including dignitaries, government officials, politicians, NGO workers, people in the church and professionals.
