During John Paul's time as pope, the church was involved in a large number of claims about child sexual abuse by priests. There are many people who believe that the Church, and therefore the Pope, knew about these claims and tried to cover them up. For example, in 1996 the Irish bishops decided that priests suspected of child abuse must be reported to the police. The Vatican sent a letter to the bishops that they were not to report such cases. The letter was from future Pope Benedict XVI - whom John Paul II had asked to handle such cases. John Paul II is also claimed to have got a cardinal to send a thank you letter to a French bishop who had refused to report a priest to the police. In 2001 John Paul II sent out a special letter saying that the abuse of children by priests was a very serious crime, and should be strictly punished. Some Catholics wanted the process for making John Paul II a saint stopped, until there was an investigation into his role in keeping secret information about bad priests.