Monsignor Victor Manuel Fernández denied victims in 2019.
Pope Francis chose Argentina’s Archbishop Monsignor Victor Manuel Fernández to lead the Holy See’s doctrinal orthodoxy inspector.
The Holy See’s doctrinal orthodoxy watchdog handles clerical sex abuse complaints.
A U.S. organization called the pope’s choice of Monsignor Victor Manuel Fernández “troubling”.
A U.S. organization that follows how the Catholic hierarchy handles clerical sexual abuse claims says Pope Francis made a “troubling” decision in selecting an Argentine bishop for a major Vatican agency that handles such cases.
The Vatican said Saturday that the pope had appointed Monsignor Victor Manuel Fernández, archbishop of La Plata, Argentina, to head the Holy See’s doctrinal orthodoxy monitor. It investigates clergy sexual misconduct.
BishopAccountability.org, a 20-year-old Massachusetts nonprofit that maintains an online database of Roman Catholic Church abuse, claimed the bishop 2019 refused to believe victims who accused a priest in the La Plata archdiocese of sexually assaulting minors.
Francis “made a baffling and troubling choice,” the organization said in an email late Saturday in the U.S., noting Fernández’s handling of the issue.
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“He stoutly supported the accused priest and refused to believe the victims,” BishopAccountability.org added. Fernández “should have been investigated, not promoted to one of the highest posts in the global church.”
Sunday’s La Plata archdiocese office calls were unanswered. The archbishop’s email to the archdiocese went unanswered.
The 60-year-old archbishop, who will oversee the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in September, “will have immense power, especially when it comes to judging and punishing priests who abuse children,” BishopAccountability.org warned.
Fernández, the “pope’s theologian,” is a valued advisor to Francis and is said to have helped write some of his most significant texts. In 2018, the pope appointed him La Plata archbishop.
BishopAccountability.org reported that the archbishop posted a statement from a La Plata parish priest on the archdiocese’s website after a 2008 child abuse accusation resurfaced in 2019. The cleric disputed the molestation claims and claimed defamation.
BishopAccountability.org says the archbishop celebrated Mass with the accused priest at his parish.
Fernández let the priest work despite new claims. The archbishop removed him, citing “health reasons.” The monitoring organization and Argentine media reported that the priest committed himself hours after a court ordered his arrest in December 2019.
“Nothing about his performance suggests that he is fit to lead the pope’s battle against abuse and cover-up,” BishopAccountability.org wrote of Fernández.
Francis says the Catholic Church would have zero tolerance for priestly sexual abuse.
