Pope sends expert to check into bishop
Chilean bishop suspected of covering up sex crimes by former priest
VATICAN CITY — After coming under excoriating public criticism, Pope Francis has decided to send the Vatican’s most respected sex crimes expert to Chile to investigate a bishop accused by victims of covering up for the country’s most notorious pedophile priest.
The Vatican said Tuesday that Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna would travel to Chile “to listen to those who have expressed the desire to provide elements” about the case of Bishop Juan Barros.
The move marks the first known time the Vatican has launched a full-blown investigation into allegations of sex abuse cover-up, and it comes after Francis was harshly criticized for his defense of Barros by the media, survivors of abuse, his fellow Jesuits and by some of his most trusted advisers.
The Barros controversy dominated Francis’ just-ended trip to Chile and Peru and exposed his blind spot about clerical abuse. Even the head of his abuse advisory panel, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, publicly rebuked him for his dismissive treatment of victims and tried to set him straight.
Barros was a protege of the Rev. Fernando Karadima, a charismatic and politically powerful priest who was sanctioned by the Vatican for sexually abusing minors in 2011. His victims testified to Chilean prosecutors that Barros and other priests in the El Bosque community saw Karadima kissing youngsters and were aware of his perversions, but did nothing.
After Karadima was sanctioned by a church court, Chile’s bishops were so intent on trying to stem the fallout from the scandal that they persuaded the Vatican to have Barros and two other Karadima-trained bishops resign and take a yearlong sabbatical, according to a 2015 letter obtained by The Associated Press.
But Francis stepped in and put a stop to the plan, arguing that there wasn’t any proof against them. He overruled the Chilean bishops’ objections and in January 2015 appointed Barros to head the diocese of Osorno. Barros’ presence there has badly split the dioceses.