Pope Francis has saved all 34 Chilean bishops accused of operating a pedophile ring from having to serve a prison sentence.
Following a meeting this week with the Pope, the Vatican decided the best way to cover-up their crimes was to have the bishops resign.
Dailymail.co.uk reports: The bishops also apologised to Chile, the victims of abuse and the pope for the scandal as they released an extraordinary joint statement.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
It was not immediately clear if the pope, who slammed had accepted their resignation.
The bishops announced at the end of an emergency summit with Pope Francis that all 31 active bishops and three retired ones in Rome had signed a document offering to resign and putting their fate in the hands of the pope.
Francis can accept the resignations one by one, reject them or delay a decision.
It marked the first known time in history that an entire national bishops conference had offered to resign en masse over scandal, and laid bare the devastation that the abuse crisis has caused the Catholic Church in Chile and beyond.
Calls had mounted for the resignations after details emerged of the contents of a 2,300-page Vatican report into the Chilean scandal leaked early Friday.
Francis had accused the bishops of destroying evidence of sex crimes, pressuring investigators to minimize abuse accusations and showing ‘grave negligence’ in protecting children from paedophile priests.
In one of the most damning documents from the Vatican on the issue, Francis said the entire Chilean church hierarchy was collectively responsible for ‘grave defects’ in handling cases and the resulting loss of credibility that the Catholic Church has suffered.
‘No one can exempt himself and place the problem on the shoulders of the others,’ Francis wrote in the document, which was published by Chilean T13 television and confirmed as accurate Friday by the Vatican.
In a statement in response, the Chilean bishops said the contents of the document were ‘absolutely deplorable’ and showed an ‘unacceptable abuse of power and conscience,’ as well as sexual abuse.
They asked forgiveness to the victims, the pope and all Catholics and vowed to repair the damage.
Francis summoned the entire bishops’ conference to Rome after admitting that he had made ‘grave errors in judgment’ in the case of Bishop Juan Barros, who is accused by victims of Chilean priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, of witnessing and ignoring their abuse.
But the scandal grew beyond the Barros case after Francis received the report written by two Vatican sex crimes experts sent to Chile to get a handle on the scope of the problem.
Their report hasn’t been made public, but Francis cited its core findings in the footnotes of the document that he handed over to the bishops at the start of their summit this week.
And those findings are damning.
Francis said the investigation showed there were ‘grave defects’ in the way abuse cases were handled, with superficial investigations or no investigation at all of allegations that contained obvious evidence of crimes.
The result, he said, ‘created a scandal for those who denounced them and all those who know the alleged victims.’
In other cases, there was ‘grave negligence’ in protecting children from pedophiles by bishops and religious superiors – a reference to the many cases of sexual abuse that have arisen in recent years within Chilean religious orders, including the Salesians, Franciscans and the Marist Brothers community.
Some of these religious order priests and brothers were expelled from their congregations because of immoral conduct, but had their cases ‘minimized of the absolute gravity of their criminal acts, attributing to them mere weakness or moral lapses,’ Francis wrote.
But those same people ‘were then welcomed into other dioceses, in an obviously imprudent way, and given diocesan or parish jobs that gave them daily contact with minors,’ he said.
Such behavior has been the hallmark of the clerical sex abuse crisis worldwide, with bishops and religious superiors shuttling abusers from parish to parish or dioceses rather than reporting them to police or launching canonical investigations and removing them from ministry.
Francis said he was also ‘perplexed and ashamed’ by the report’s evidence that there were ‘pressures exercised’ on church officials tasked with investigating sex crimes ‘including the destruction of compromising documents on the part of those in charge of ecclesiastic archives.’
He said such behavior showed ‘an absolute lack of respect for the canonical process and worse, reprehensible practices that must be avoided in the future.’
He said the problem wasn’t limited to a group of people, but can be traced to the training Chilean priests receive in seminary, blaming the ‘profound fracture’ within the church on the seminaries themselves.
The Vatican investigation, he said, contained ‘grave accusations against some bishops and superiors who sent to these educational institutions priests suspected of active homosexuality.’
The harsh assessment of the quality of seminaries suggests that a possible next step might be a full-on Vatican investigation of Chilean schools of priestly training.
Pope Benedict XVI ordered such an investigation into Irish seminaries after he convened the entire Irish bishops’ conference for a similar dressing-down in 2010 over their dismal handling of abuse cases.
‘The problems inside the church community can’t be solved just by dealing with individual cases and reducing them to the removal of people, though this – and I say so clearly – has to be done,’ Francis wrote.
‘But it’s not enough, we have to go beyond that. It would be irresponsible on our part to not look deeply into the roots and the structures that allowed these concrete events to occur and perpetuate.’
For years, sex abuse victims have blasted the Chilean hierarchy for discrediting their claims, protecting abusers and moving them around rather than reporting them to police and then handing out light sentences when church sanctions were imposed.
Based on Francis’ footnotes, the Vatican investigation compiled by the Catholic Church’s top abuse prosecutor, Archbishop Charles Scicluna and his aide, Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, gave full credibility to the victims.
Francis, though, has also been implicated in the scandal, and in his document saying all Chilean bishops bore blame he added ‘and me first of all.’
Francis first drew scorn from victims, ordinary Chileans and even members of his sex abuse advisory board by appointing Barros bishop of Osorno, Chile, in 2015.
The Associated Press reported earlier this year that Francis did so over the objections of other Chilean bishops who knew Barros’ past was problematic and had recommended he and other Karadima-trained bishops resign and take a sabbatical.
The AP subsequently reported that Francis had received a letter in 2015 from one of Karadima’s most vocal accusers, Juan Carlos Cruz, detailing Barros’ misdeeds. That letter undercut Francis’ claim to have never heard from victims about Barros.
Francis further enraged Chileans and drew sharp rebuke from his top abuse adviser when, during a January trip to Chile, he said the accusations against Barros were ‘calumny’ and said he was ‘certain’ he was innocent.
After receiving the Scicluna-Bertomeu report, though, Francis did an about-face. Blaming a ‘lack of truthful and balanced information’ about the case for his missteps, Francis invited the three main whistleblowers to the Vatican hotel he calls home so he could apologize in person.
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
well that will spoil all their fun No jailhouse rock for them then.
The pope has been involved in sex scandals himself. The pope invited them all to the vatican for a big party. If the pope ever read the Bible he would know how God, Jesus Christ, feels about those who hurt the little ones…he will find out on Judgement Day.
This evil pope is guilty of the same things these bishops are. I pray the truth comes to light about all the evil the vatican has done and is doing. It’s much worse than just pedophilia. God is not mocked. Chile should still arrest and prosecute all involved. Just becuz the pope seeks to protect them, that shouldn’t stop the govmt from doing what is right.
Way back when in the early years of the Christian Church (AD 300+), those who wanted Rome to be the corporate head quarters (Babylonian thinking) of the Christian church to be located in Rome, may have had some remaining vestiges of obeying Jesus Christ’s (Head of the Church) command to preach the gospel but it is all too evident that over time, Roman Catholicism which may have been an orthodox branch of Christianity at one time, has become an apostate organization whose goals are more like the UN’s, rather than those of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ will have His millennial reign here on earth but Roman Catholicism will not be part of that and more than likely, considering its recent trends regarding selection of its leaders, is more likely to oppose Jesus Christ than obey Him!
If you want to be a follower of Jesus Christ and you are still caught up within Roman Catholicism, I suggest getting off that wayward ship!
Do you also consider all US citizens, who are legally the property of the US corporation, to be guilty of the crimes of all of their leaders? – or do you believe in the truth of the words of Jesus Christ in John 3:16 “whoever hears my word and believes him
who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has
passed from death to life”.
I haven’t found a reference to your entitlement to judge other Christians, of course, because you’re not entitled to play God and judge others, regardless of their beliefs or affiliations.
Ah but you are so very wrong. As is the case with most people, Christians or not, who are ignorant of God’s word, scripture does not prohibit me from making judgments about people but rather states that I should be prepared to be judged by the standard I am judging others by (Matt 7:1-5). If scripture is my standard by which I judge others, I am prepared to be judged by that also.
You Catholics still hanging onto your cult of following some guy in Rome with a cone head hat is not scriptural for Jesus Christ is the head of the Christian Church. I am not going to waste my time trying to educate someone who is ignorant of scripture. The reason you Catholic pope followers whine about others playing god is that your are jealous of their knowledge of God’s word and feel absolutely helpless to reason from scripture but always turn to the world and cult like Catholic doctrine to bail you out. Regardless you are helpless against God’s word. For if God is with me, who can be against me?
3rd post saved
I’m not a Catholic, but you’re correct in stating that in refusing
to acknowledge Catholics as Christians, based on scripture, the words
of Jesus Christ will condemn you at the last day. If God was with
you, as you falsely claim, no one who is against you would
matter.
John 5:24 Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word
and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged
but has crossed over from death to life.
John 12:47 If anyone
hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person.
For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. 48
There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my
words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last
day.
John 4:20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother
or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and
sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not
seen.
Matthew 12:36-37 But I tell you that everyone will have
to give account on the day of
judgment for every empty word they
have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your
words you will be condemned.”
Mark 7:6 He replied, “Isaiah
was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites;
as it is
written: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their
hearts are far from me.
James 3:17 But the wisdom that comes
from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate,
submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
Matthew 6:1 Be careful not to practice your righteousness in
front of others to be
seen by them. If you do, you will have no
reward from your Father in heaven.
Romans 10:3 Since they did
not know the righteousness of God and sought to
establish their
own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Galatians
6:1-6 NIV Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you
who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch
yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s
burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If
anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive
themselves.
4 Each one should test their own actions. Then they
can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to
someone else.
Matthew 23:27-28 Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which
look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones
of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the
outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are
full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
Titus 1:16 They claim
to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are
detestable,
disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
I cannot find a clear point that you are trying to make.
Young man, not all judgments are last day judgments. The text in Matt 7:1-5 is clearly about judging other people regarding day to day matters. Jesus is telling us to not go around as the Pharisees did, continuously judging everyone on their lives, on whether or not they were following the law and Rabbinical teachings and practices, forgetting the spirit of the law while entirely focusing on small and perhaps irrelevant things. You have some reflection to do before coming to this discussion able to make meaningful points.
You must be born again to be a believer…..one can still be born again and remain in Catholicism…..there are many people who are born again following false doctrine and false practices and they need to get out from under those. I have been consistent about comments about individuals within Catholicism and corporate Catholicism……and that is extremely important because no organization or church saves, only the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ at Calvary saves when that soul saving event is believed upon.
The Catholic community build on sand no smart leader to control this community
This community can be in much better position from the financial aspect and religion aspect if we have smart leaders to control this community, but this community leads by people has double standers and hidden agenda.