The challenge for all Filipinos — and people everywhere, really — is to take a principled and moral stand and act without fear to protect children from sexual abuse. Adults must find their true Christian faith and have the courage to speak out, report child sexual abuse, and stop it by exposing the crime, telling the truth, and ending the culture of silence.
This applies to all churches, especially the Catholic Church and its bishops everywhere, as Pope Leo XIV recently spoke out in France to remind these prelates of their sacred duty to stop sexual abuse in their ranks and report abusive priests to civil authorities. Bringing clerical child abusers to justice and convicting and jailing them is a most important way to protect children from priests and laypeople committing this heinous crime. Child sexual abuse can happen in sacristies and rectories, schools and hotels, as well as online.
One such abuser was Fr. Karole Reward Israel from the Diocese of Tuguegarao. He is in the Cagayan provincial jail facing 20 criminal counts, including 11 counts of qualified child rape, for abusing a 16-year-old church volunteer. He videotaped his abusive acts and used the recording to blackmail the minor into keeping silent. Upon his arrest, he admitted to the crimes but claimed it was consensual. The child denied giving consent. Republic Act 7610, or the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act, protects all children younger than age 18. It explicitly says an adult who uses authority, influence, or moral ascendancy to engage a child in sexual conduct is guilty of child abuse and exploitation.
When Pope Leo was in Lourdes last month, he held a private, emotional two-hour meeting with seven French survivors of clerical child abuse. He hugged them and listened to their stories of the clerical abuse they suffered. He committed himself to stand with them to prevent further abuse. The pontiff told the bishops in France and beyond to stop child abuse by their priests. He also told them to root out the “scourge” of sexual abuse and maintain the “greatest vigilance.” Abuse, he said, destroys the faith of victims. There must be total accountability.
Sexual abuse of any kind contradicts the words of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel of Matthew: “It would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Mt 18:6).
Strong words, indeed. For abusers, there should be no impunity, no denial, and no cover-up, just repentance, confession and penance according to the civil law. There is no exception, not even bishops. Children, Jesus said, are the most important in the Kingdom of God. “Protect and receive a child, and you receive me,” he said.
“The Church must look into the mirror of truth without fear. This scourge is not merely a collection of isolated events; it represents a profound human and spiritual failure that demands our ongoing vigilance, absolute transparency, and unyielding support for the healing of survivors. Our accountability must be absolute, for where trust was broken, only the truth can begin to rebuild,” Pope Leo said.
Profound shame
His remarks came after a major investigation into the French Church on clerical child abuse produced a 2,500-page report published by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church in October 2021. The report of the commission, led by Jean-Marc Sauvé, estimated that at least 330,000 children were sexually abused within church institutions in the country over a 70-year period. The vast majority of the victims were boys between ages 10 and 13. There were about 2,900 to 3,200 people abusing children in the Church since 1950. Roughly two-thirds were priests or other ordained clerics, while the others were lay members. A BBC report said the commission had found that the institutional Church showed a “cruel indifference toward the victims.”
The French bishops have expressed profound shame and asked the victims for forgiveness. The French Church has agreed to pay them compensation. Although Leo’s predecessor, Francis, stood up for child abuse victims and challenged the cover-up and denial of their ordeal, he was ignored by most bishops, so the abuse continued with impunity. This writer met with Pope Francis face-to-face in September 2015, when this writer was invited to join an international symposium in the Vatican on protecting the rights of street children and women. Working with about 35 other people, the symposium resulted in a document that became Francis’ guidelines on street children for dioceses worldwide.
In Massachusetts, the state’s Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell published a report on Sept. 30, 2026, after a yearslong investigation in the Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester dioceses that found evidence that 275 clerics, including priests and nuns, abused children and that 944 children reported being sexually abused.
“For decades, survivors of clergy sexual abuse, including those who are no longer alive, have carried the devastating consequences of abuse, while the institutions entrusted with their care too often failed to protect them,” Campbell said.
The number of priests abusing children worldwide then and now is staggering. What must it be like in the Philippines, where only one priest was convicted last year? In January 2025, the United States-based watchdog group BishopAccountability.org launched an online database naming 82 Catholic priests and bishops linked to the Philippines who have been publicly accused of sexually abusing minors. Researchers say this is just the “tip of the iceberg.”
The rest of that proverbial iceberg, based on theoretical estimates, is as follows: In countries where independent commissions, government inquiries, or extensive legal discovery took place, researchers found that between 4 percent and 7 percent of all active Catholic priests faced credible accusations of child sexual abuse over the multidecade periods investigated. If we apply these international baselines to the 10,662 Filipino priests currently serving in the Philippines, 423 are likely to have abused children. A midrange estimate would put the figure at 586 priests, while a high-end estimate would show that 746 would have abused children.
So, despite all the promises by the hierarchy to increase safeguarding, only one Filipino priest has ever been convicted, one is in jail and on trial, and about six are facing credible complaints. They are, for sure, above the law and allowed, it seems, to continue their horrific crimes, which are covered up by most bishops. Despite the strong warnings of Pope Leo and the advice of Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, bishop of Kalookan, to bring clerical abusers to justice, change is not coming soon.
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LiCAS News was granted permission to republish and adapt this article by Father Shay Cullen in the spirit of truth-telling and the pursuit of justice.
Irish missionary Father Shay Cullen, SSC, founded the Preda Foundation in Olongapo City in 1974 to promote human rights and the rights of children, especially victims of sexual abuse.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of LiCAS News.
