The Portuguese Bishops’ Conference (CEP) made the information public in reply to a request from the national television broadcaster RTP.
The CEP confirmed that a canonical investigation is underway, but declined to provide any details as to the nature of the charges, or which dicastery or court is conducting the case. It said that since Bishop Carlos Azevedo is a curial official, authority over proceedings rests solely with the Holy See.
However, the Portuguese Catholic outlet Renascença later claimed it was a penal case in one of the Holy See’s highest courts, which could refer to the Roman Rota, the Apostolic Penitentiary or, most likely, the Apostolic Signatura.
It also claimed bishop was ordered not to take part in public religious events. Bishop Azevedo was conspicuously absent from Pope Francis’ funeral ceremonies and from the inauguration mass for Pope Leo XIV.
A Portuguese cleric contacted by The Tablet said he could not provide details about the case, but explained that because Azevedo is a curial official, the Pope could have asked for the case to be conducted by one of the top courts, which generally hear appeals.
Though the charges against the bishop have not been made public, The Tablet can confirm they are not related to claims of sexual harassment made by a Portuguese priest in 2010, and that no Commission for the Protection of Minors in any diocese in Portugal has received any formal complaints. A source from the Diocese of Porto, where the bishop keeps a residence, also confirmed that no complaint was sent from there to the Holy See.
The 2010 complaint, filed by Fr José Nuno Ferreira with the nunciature in Lisbon, alleged harassment by the bishop in the 1980s, when the former was a seminarian and the latter the spiritual director of the seminary in Porto. Ferreira further claimed that there had been another incident of harassment in the 1990s and another in 2009, when Azevedo was already a bishop.
In 2011, amid rumours of homosexual activity, Bishop Azevedo was moved from the Patriarchate of Lisbon, where he had been auxiliary since 2005, to Rome, to serve as delegate at the Pontifical Council for Culture. In 2013 the harassment allegations became public and the apostolic nuncio to Portugal confirmed he had received the complaint and opened an investigation, but the Vatican’s spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi denied any knowledge of the case and no more was heard of the subject.
Though it is unclear if these are also the grounds for the current investigation, it is possible that the Holy See decided to revisit the case and that Pope Francis ordered that it be conducted by the Signatura, rather than through the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Neither Bishop Azevedo nor Fr Ferreira responded to requests for comments.