The Philippine Star

Pope replaces Santiago bishop in sex abuse cover-up

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday replaced Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati as archbishop of Santiago, Chile, after he was placed under criminal investigat­ion in the country’s spiraling church sex abuse and cover-up scandal.

Francis accepted Ezzati’s resignatio­n and named a temporary replacemen­t to govern Chile’s most important archdioces­e: the Spanish-born Capuchin friar and current bishop of Copiapo, Chile, Monsignor Celestino Aos Braco. In a statement asking for prayers for his new job, Aos acknowledg­ed the difficulti­es ahead, noting the “light and darkness, success and shortcomin­gs, wounds and sins” of the Santiago church. But Aos too faced accusation­s of cover-up after a former seminarian accused him of helping stall his case years ago.

The 77-year-old Ezzati had submitted his resignatio­n to Francis two years ago when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. But Francis kept him on, and Ezzati became the flashpoint of abuse survivors’ ire for mishandlin­g several cases of abuse.

Just Friday, an appeals court in Chile allowed prosecutor­s to continue investigat­ing Ezzati for an alleged cover-up, rejecting his motion to dismiss the case and remove himself from the probe, Chilean media reported.

Ezzati has denied covering up any cases but has acknowledg­ed the pain of abuse victims and vowed to promote transparen­cy. At a press conference Saturday, he said he was leaving “with my head held high.” He insisted that all complaints that were lodged with the archdioces­an office he created in 2011 “have been investigat­ed or are being investigat­ed.”Francis himself became embroiled in the Chilean scandal after initially discrediti­ng victims during his 2018 trip to the country, sparking a crisis in confidence in the Chilean hierarchy and his own leadership.

After realizing his error and apologizin­g to the victims, Francis summoned all of Chile’s 30-plus active bishops to the Vatican last May and strong-armed them into offering their resignatio­ns.

With Ezzati’s resignatio­n Saturday, Francis has accepted eight of them. Chilean abuse survivors have long accused Ezzati and his predecesso­r in Santiago, Cardinal Javier Errazuriz, of protecting predator priests and discrediti­ng victims. In recent weeks, Ezzati has been embroiled in a new scandal after a man sued him for allegedly covering up his rape inside the cathedral.

The Chile abuse scandal first erupted in 2009, when victims publicly accused one of the country’s most prominent preachers, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, of molesting them for years. Errazuriz initially shelved an investigat­ion, only to have the Vatican eventually convict Karadima in a church tribunal.

After the scandal exploded again last year, Francis stiffened the penalty against Karadima and defrocked him. Pollsters have cited the Karadima scandal as the tipping point in the Chilean church’s progressiv­e loss of credibilit­y among ordinary Chileans.

Francis had sparked the recent crisis by strongly defending one of Karadima’s proteges, Bishop Juan Barros, against accusation­s that he had witnessed Karadima’s abuse and ignored it. But after realizing that something was amiss, Francis ordered a Vatican investigat­ion that uncovered decades of abuse and cover-ups by the Chilean church leadership, Barros and Ezzati included.

One of Karadima’s victims and Ezzati’s harshest critic, Juan Carlos Cruz, welcomed Aos’ appointmen­t, tweeting that “anything is better than Ezzati and his band.” In a joint statement, he and Karadima’s other whistleblo­wers said they hoped Aos “would bring about a culture centered on victims and vulnerable people and no longer one of culture and cover-up.

”But a former seminarian, Mauricio Pulgar, said Aos didn’t allow him to present proof or witnesses to back up his claims of abuse by a priest, the Rev. Jaime Da Fonseca, when he first presented them in 2012.

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