Court orders Colombia’s Catholic church to release information on alleged rapists – Colombia News

Colombia’s Constitutional Court ordered the Catholic Church to share information about child sex abuse with journalists if asked to do so.

The court ruling came in response to more than 120 lawsuits that had been filed by journalists investigating sexual abuse by members of the church.

Despite the church’s frequent refusal to respond to information requests, these journalists have revealed 517 cases of sexual abuse by clergymen.

The court was asked to rule on approximately 50 lawsuits referring to rejected information requests in April of 2023.

While the court was studying the case, journalists filed another 70 lawsuits, claiming that the church claimed that it could not release information on the identity of alleged child molesters because of the Vatican’s Rule of Pontifical Secrecy, which codifies what information churches may or may not release.

Late Pope Francis lifted this code of secrecy in sexual abuse cases in December 2019, but Colombia’s Catholic church apparently continued to apply the rule in order to protect the identities of alleged predators.

In its most recent ruing, the Constitutional Court said that the Colombian Catholic Church’s had no valid legal reasons to reject open information requests that would include the identities of alleged child rapists.

The operation and handling of the information of the members of religious institutions does not constitute a constitutionally admissible reason to restrict and limit, in a disproportionate manner, the fundamental rights of petition and access to journalistic information, which, according to the circumstances surrounding the presentation of the request, was particularly relevant to society.

Constitutional Court

According to the Court, the right of privacy of suspected clergymen does not outweigh other citizens’ “right to request and access information for journalistic activity,” especially when “these rights are exercised diligently, and in pursuit of a legitimate and constitutionally protected purpose, related to guaranteeing the rights of children and adolescents.”

One of the journalists behind the lawsuits, Juan Pablo Barrientos, decided to take the church to court after the religious institution’s refusal to release information related to more than 900 clergymen who were suspected of sexual abuse.