Pope crisis talks with Chile bishops over abuse may lead to purge
VATICAN CITY: Thirty- four Chilean bishops summoned to the Vatican over a cover-up of sexual abuse by clergy began crisis meetings with Pope Francis that could result in a purge of Chile’s Catholic hierarchy.
“We feel pain and shame,” Fernando Ramos, an auxiliary bishop of Santiago, told a news conference ahead of the three days of closed- door meetings.
The scandal has devastated the credibility of the Church in the once staunchly Catholic country.
It has also hurt the pope’s own image because this year he strongly defended a bishop accused in the alleged cover-up before reversing his position.
Bishop Juan Ignacio Gonzalez of the city of San Bernardo said he could not rule out some of the tainted bishops resigning or being sacked, as many Chileans have demanded.
One of the key bishops in the crisis is Juan Barros, whom the pope appointed to the southern city of Osorno in 2015 despite allegations that he had covered up sexual abuse of minors by his mentor, Father Fernando Karadima. Barros has said he was unaware of any wrongdoing.
Luis Badilla, a Rome- based Chilean commentator for the Vatican- affiliated blog ‘ Il Sismografo’, called for ‘exemplary and educational decisions’ by the pope to put the Chilean Church back on course.
A Vatican statement said that at the start of the meeting the pope handed each bishop a list of themes on which they should meditate and pray before the start of the next encounter yesterday.
During his trip to Chile in January, the pope said he had no proof against Barros, believed he was innocent, and that accusations against him were ‘slander’ until proven otherwise. — Reuters