Pope Francis Reverses Course on Chile Abuse Cover-Up Allegations, Apologizes to Victims

When Pope Francis spoke during a 2018 visit to Chile, few expected that his remarks would grow into the biggest crisis of his papacy. The episode eventually pushed the Catholic Church onto a new path of accountability for clergy sexual abuse, according to The Associated Press.

Asked by a television reporter about a Chilean bishop whom victims had accused of covering up the crimes of Chile’s most notorious pedophile, Francis, who had long defended the bishop, replied that there was “not one shred of proof against him. It’s all slander. Is that clear?” His response struck a nerve in Chile, which was only beginning to confront a painful legacy of clergy abuse, and his top child protection adviser sternly rebuked him for his words.

Francis then commissioned an investigation, acknowledged he had been wrong, apologized to the victims he had discredited, and received an offer of resignation from the entire Chilean hierarchy. Papal biographer Austen Ivereigh described the response: “He recognized his mistakes. He learned from them. He said ‘sorry.’ And he put it right.” Choosing to investigate rather than hold his position shows the value of honest dealing (Proverbs 11:1).

Earlier, when Francis was elected in 2013, abuse survivors and advocates questioned whether he understood the problem, since he had acknowledged he had never handled cases of accused priests as archbishop of Buenos Aires. He created a sex abuse commission to advise the church on best practices and placed Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley in charge. The AP reported that the commission lost influence after a few years, and its central recommendation, a tribunal to judge bishops who covered up for predator priests, went nowhere.

During the visit to Iquique, Chile, Francis had been asked about Bishop Juan Barros, whom he had transferred to a southern diocese over the objections of local faithful. Their complaint was that Barros had been a priest under the sanctioned Rev. Fernando Karadima and was accused by Karadima’s victims of having witnessed and covered up the crimes. Francis had defended Barros, as had Chilean Cardinal Javier Errazuriz, one of his friends and advisers. After journalists pressed him on the plane home, Francis commissioned an investigation into the Chilean church and concluded he had been misled by Errazuriz and others. Juan Carlos Cruz, one of Karadima’s victims, received the pope’s personal apology that year and later developed a personal friendship with him.

In a 2023 interview with AP, Francis said 2018 was the turning point, or “conversion,” in his understanding of abuse, and he credited journalists, including AP, with enlightening him. “I couldn’t believe it. You were the one on the plane who told me, ‘No, that’s not the way it is, Father,'” he said. “That’s when the bomb went off, when I saw the corruption of many bishops in this.”

By mid-2018, the AP reported, Francis had largely atoned for the Chile scandal, but another crisis soon followed. In July of that year, he removed former American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after church investigators found credible an allegation that McCarrick had groped a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. Several former seminarians and priests subsequently reported that McCarrick had abused or harassed them as adults.

It was apparently common knowledge among U.S. and Vatican leaders that McCarrick, known as “Uncle Ted,” slept with seminarians, yet he continued to rise steadily through the church’s ranks.

Source: Read the original report