The Chilean bishops failed to protect children from paedophile priests.

Goic has served as head of the Chilean church's child protection commission.

The extent of clerical paedophilia in Chile was detailed in a 2,300-page report compiled earlier this year at Francis's request by Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta and his aide, Fr Jordi Bertomeu.

Although almost every bishop in Chile offered his resignation to Pope Francis after a three-day meeting with him at the Vatican in May, he has accepted only individual resignations since the bishops returned to Chile.

So far he has accepted resignations from five bishops.

They include Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, once a top aide to Chile's most notorious predator priest, Fernando Karadima.

Originally Francis strongly defended Barros, dismissing objections from many of Chile's faithful, including some church officials, who said the bishop was unfit for the office because he ignored Karadima's abuse.

After Scicluna's investigations, Barros's shielding of Karadima came to light.

It also became clear some bishops not only slowed an investigation into Karadima, but also tampered with evidence.

Source

• La Croix
• Catholic Herald
• LA Times
• Image: CNN.com

Anti-abuse activists called the move the Vatican's first concrete step in Chile to purge a corrupt church hierarchy implicated in decades of sexual mistreatment and ignoring victims.

Barros of Osorno, Chile, has been at the centre of a sex abuse scandal for several years, having been accused of covering up sexual abuse committed by convicted paedophile Father Fernando Karadima in the 1980s and 1990s.

Francis appointed him bishop of Osorno in 2015, despite the objections of local Catholics, his own sex abuse prevention advisers and some of Chile's other bishops. Over 1,000 people wrote to him protesting Barros's appointment.

They questioned Barros's suitability as he had been in charge of Karadima and had been accused by victims of witnessing and ignoring their abuse.

Francis became involved in the Barros scandal when he defended him during his visit to Chile in January.

"The day I see proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk. There is not a single piece of evidence against him. It is all slander. Is that clear?" Francis said at the time.

He later apologised to victims, saying: "I apologise to them if I hurt them without realising it, but it was a wound that I inflicted without meaning to."

A Vatican official says the Pope's acceptance of Barros's resignation represented a first step towards re-ordering the Church in Chile.

He says Francis is still considering the positions of the other prelates.

In the meantime, he has accepted resignations from two other Chilean bishops because they have reached the retirement age of 75.

Last month Chile's 34 bishops offered to resign en masse after meeting Francis at the Vatican about allegations of covering up sexual abuse.

This is the first time in 200 years the resignation of an entire delegation of bishops has occurred.

"Today begins a new day for the Catholic Church in Chile and hopefully the world," Juan Carlos Cruz, the key witness in the Barros abuse case, said on Twitter.

"We hope this is the beginning of the end of this culture of abuse and cover-up in the Church. Emotional but great day!"

Francis has created a Vatican committee to fight sexual abuse and help victims.

Source

• BBC
• Al Jazzera
• Vatican News
• LA Times
• Image: Christian Today

Francis invited the survivors, Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton and Andres Murillo, to stay in the Santa Marta residence where he lives.

In a series of meetings that began in the Vatican on Friday, continued over the weekend and finished on Monday, Francis and the three survivors spoke privately.

One of the three survivors, Hamilton, tweeted that his more than two hours of conversation with Francis were "enormously constructive".

Murillo also tweeted about his meeting, saying he stressed the importance of understanding sexual abuse as "abuse of power" when he met with Francis.

The third man, Cruz, has not yet commented about his meeting, which was on Sunday.

However, he said in a tweet he was happy his friends were "calm and in peace and feeling very welcome by the Holy Father" after their visits with Francis.

Before the meetings, Francis vowed to ask for the men's forgiveness for not believing Bishop Juan Barros covered up the abuse meted out to them by Fr Fernando Karadima who is held to be the Chilean church's most notorious sex predator.

Francis initially believed Barros and, while in Chile at the beginning of the year, defended him publicly several times.

He even said the accusations against Barros were "calumnies."

However shortly after returning to Rome, Francis decided to send Archbishop Charles Scicluna - a former top prosecutor on sex abuse crimes - to investigate the allegations.

After reading Scicluna's 2,300-page report, he invited the three survivors to the Vatican to meet with him.

The Vatican says Francis hopes to use the meetings with the three survivors as a "fundamental step forward" in ridding the church of abuse.

Source

• ABC News
• Crux
• The Salt Lake Tribune
• Image: The Telegraph

Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati says Barros, who allegedly covered up abuse of minors, should 'without a doubt' resign.

He also says he would not judge whether Barros actually had covered up abuse by Fr Fernando Karadima.

"I'm not a judge" who can say if Barros in fact covered up or not.

Baross's diocese of Osorno released a statement on Thursday saying he has some "health difficulties," while reiterating that he's "permanently available to the directions of the Holy Father."

No details were given regarding his condition.

Last week Pope Francis admitted 'grave mistakes' in his handling of the abuse crisis.

After initially defending Barros and saying he had been slandered, Francis appointed Vatican-based sexual abuse investigator Archbishop Charles Scicluna to investigate the matter.

Scicluna went to Chile to meet with abuse victims and clergy to find out whether Barros did have a case to answer.

After reading Scicluna's 2,300-page report, which included the testimony of 64 individuals, Francis changed his mind about Barros.

He said the report caused him "pain and shame" and he apologised to everyone he offended by his earlier stance.

He acknowledged he made "serious errors of assessment and perception ... especially due to lack of truthful and balanced information."

Ezzati says Francis was "deceived" with the information given to him about Barros.

He says it is "a very serious fault to have misinformed the Holy Father," and noted he hadn't "deceived anyone" himself.

In his opinion the bishop's situation should have been resolved "years ago."

Source

• Christian Today
• The Tablet
• CruxNow
• Image: Alchetron

Scicluna will travel to New York next week to interview the victim, Juan Carlos Cruz. The victim is at the centre of a scandal involving Pope Francis.

Cruz says a letter he wrote in 2015 asking Pope Francis to listen to his testimony about clergy abuse and its subsequent cover-up has been ignored.

The Associated Press (AP) claims Francis received the victim's letter in 2015, which detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how other Chilean clergy ignored it.

The AP statements contradict Francis's insistence that no victims had come forward to denounce the coverup.

If the APs statements are true, they could undermine Francis's assertions of "zero tolerance" for sexual abuse and those who seek to cover it up.

The accusations against Francis emerged last month during his trip to South America.

Francis said he had not heard from any victims about Bishop Juan Barros, who is accused of witnessing and ignoring abuse perpetrated by Fr. Fernando Karadima.

His response that the accusations were slanderous sparked an outcry in Chile.

Marie Collins, who was a founding member of Pope Francis's Commission for the Protection of Minors but who resigned in early 2017, says his handling of the Chilean abuse survivor's letter has "definitely undermined credibility, trust and hope" in Francis.

"He has said all the right things and he has expressed all the right views on abuse, and the harm and the hurt, but in this case at least it would seem his actions have not matched the words, and that is sad," she says.

Collins says she personally handed the letter from Cruz to Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who heads the Commission for the Protection of Minors.

"Cardinal O'Malley said he would hand it to the pope, and he told us later he had done so and that he had discussed the concerns with the pope himself," Collins says.

Francis told reporters on a flight back from South America that no victims had come forward to him about the case.

Source

• The Spec
• Crux Now
• The Star
• Image: Duna