A coalition of survivors of clergy sexual abuse are demanding that cardinals entering the conclave will pick a pope who will adopt a universal zero-tolerance policy for abuse.

The group End Clergy Abuse issued an open letter to the cardinals who are meeting informally this week before the start of the May 7 conclave. SNAP, the main U.S.-based survivor group, also identified cardinals who themselves have problematic records in a new database, highlighting a new level of scrutiny of all possible contenders for the papacy.

The developments come amid real questions about how prominent the abuse scandal is featuring in the discussions about finding a new pope. After two decades of unrelenting revelations about abuse and cover-up that have discredited the Catholic hierarchy, many church leaders would like to think the issue is in the past, the survivors said.

“The sexual abuse crisis is not a matter of the past. It is present. And nowhere is its devastation more visible than in the Global South,” the survivors said in the open letter.