Pope begins purge in Chile church over abuse scandal

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis began purging Chile’s Catholic hierarchy yesterday over an avalanche of sex abuse and cover-up cases, starting with accepting the resignations of the bishop at the centre of the scandal and two others.

More heads were expected to roll, given that the scandal has only grown in the weeks since all of Chile’s more than 30 active bishops offered to quit over their collective guilt in failing to protect Chile’s children from priests who raped, groped and molested them.

The pope, pictured, had accepted the resignations of Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, Bishop Gonzalo Duarte of Valparaiso and Bishop Cristian Caro of Puerto Montt.

Barros, 61, has been at the centre of Chile’s growing scandal ever since the pope appointed him bishop of Osorno in 2015 over the objections of the local faithful, his own sex abuse prevention advisers and some of Chile’s other bishops.

They questioned Barros’s suitability to lead given that he had been a top lieutenant of Chile’s most notorious predator priest and had been accused by victims of witnessing and ignoring their abuse.

Barros denied the charge, but he twice offered to resign in the ensuing years. Last month, he joined the rest of Chile’s bishops in offering to step down during an extraordinary Vatican summit. The pope had summoned Chile’s church leaders to Rome after realising he had made “grave errors in judgement” about Barros, whom he had defended strongly during a visit to Chile in January.

In a statement yesterday, Barros asked forgiveness “for my limitations and what I couldn’t handle”.

Barros’s removal, which had been expected, was praised by abuse survivors and Catholics in Osorno. Some said more housecleaning was now needed to heal the devastation wrought by the scandal.

“I’m thrilled for all those who have fought to see this day,” he said. “The band of criminal bishops… begins to disintegrate today,” tweeted Juan Carlos Cruz, the abuse survivor who had denounced Barros for years.

The pope realised he had misjudged the Chilean situation after meeting Cruz and reading a 2 300-page report by Vatican investigators about the depth of the scandal. – AP/ African News Agency (ANA)