Chilean bishops offer mass resignation over sex abuse scandal

[rooster59]

Chilean bishops offer mass resignation over sex abuse scandal

By Crispian Balmer and Aislinn Laing

 

Pope Francis poses with Chilean bishops after a meeting at the Vatican, May 17, 2018. Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS

 

VATICAN CITY and SANTIAGO (Reuters) - In an unprecedented move, all of Chile's bishops offered to resign on Friday after attending a crisis meeting this week with Pope Francis about the cover-up of sexual abuse in the South American nation.

 

Several victims invited by the pope to Rome earlier this month said they wanted all 34 bishops sacked and replaced by more moral candidates, and for the Vatican to extend punishment to others implicated in the scandal.

 

The offer of mass resignations on Friday by the bishops summoned to Rome marks the first time that all the senior Roman Catholic prelates of a country have taken such a step, a Vatican official said.

 

A Vatican official declined to speculate on the pope's response.

 

"We have put our positions in the hands of the Holy Father and will leave it to him to decide freely for each of us," the bishops said in a joint statement read out by a spokesman for them, Bishop Fernando Ramos.

 

The announcement followed four days of discussions in the Vatican, where the pope accused the bishops of "grave negligence" in investigating allegations that children had been abused and saying evidence of sex crimes had been destroyed.

 

Apologising to the victims, the pope and to Chile for the failings of Chile's churchmen, Ramos said the bishops would all stay in their roles until Francis had decided what to do.

 

The scandal that has swirled around the Chilean church for more than 20 years erupted four months ago when the pope visited Chile, prompting questions about his response to the serious claims of abuse.

 

Chilean victims of abuse welcomed news the bishops were ready to stand down but insisted the Vatican should take further, punitive action against the bishops.

 

Juan Carlos Cruz, one of three Chilean victims invited by the pope to Rome earlier this month, said the "corrupt" bishops should be replaced by those in the church who had helped abuse victims.

 

"There are very good people within the Chilean Church who could take over the reigns and repair the damage done by these corrupt bishops," Cruz said in an interview.

 

Eneas Espinoza, a Chilean man who claims to have been abused while at a school run by the Marist brothers, called on the pope to pursue a canonical prosecution that could see them stripped of all titles and benefits.

 

"We want concrete, real action," he said in an interview. "I don't want my abuser to end up living in a plush retirement home."

 

The scandal revolves around Father Fernando Karadima, who was found guilty in a 2011 Vatican investigation of abusing boys in Santiago in the 1970s and 1980s. Now 87 and living in a nursing home in Chile, he has always denied any wrongdoing.

 

Victims accused Bishop Juan Barros of having witnessed the abuse but doing nothing to stop it. Barros, who was one of those who offered to stand down, has denied the allegations.

 

Friday's resignations came just four months after the pope had visited Chile in a trip that raised questions over his response to abuse scandals that have rocked the church over the past 17 years and his willingness to deal with the crisis.

 

During the visit, Pope Francis staunchly defended Barros, denouncing accusations against him as "slander."

 

But days after returning to Rome, the pope, citing new information, sent sexual abuse investigator Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta to Chile to speak to victims, witnesses and other church members.

 

Some of his findings were included in a damning 10-page document that was presented to the bishops this week, according to Chile's T13 television, which obtained a leaked copy. A source in the Vatican confirmed the report was genuine.

 

In it, the pope said he felt "shame" over the pressure put on people not to carry out full investigations into what had happened, saying some churchmen had been afraid to face their responsibilities and confront "the ramifications of evil."

 

"We are all involved, myself in first place, and no one can be exempted by looking to shift the problem onto the backs of others," the pope wrote.

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-05-19

[smedly]

can we send all the displaced muslims there since you all have something in common

[tracker1]

Looks like it's not only Australia where the clergy have been stickin their dickin where it shouldn't have been and the Pope does nothing just waffles on !

[Expatthailover]

Goes to show that corrupt insidious individuals exist in all religious/spiritual organisations and are not confined to being thai monks as some of  the haters on here would have us believe

[Ulic]

10 hours ago, tracker1 said:

Looks like it's not only Australia where the clergy have been stickin their dickin where it shouldn't have been and the Pope does nothing just waffles on !

It is worldwide. Canada, the USA, Europe, Philippines. Every country there are Catholic churches there are pedophile priests and priests that covered up for them. 

[Retiredandhappyhere]

9 hours ago, Ulic said:

It is worldwide. Canada, the USA, Europe, Philippines. Every country there are Catholic churches there are pedophile priests and priests that covered up for them. 

That is what comes of having institutions which attract men who voluntarily agree to forego the pleasures of sexual relationships.  It is somewhat abnormal to do that, while, in the case of Christianity, professing to be "married" to Jesus Christ, and in my opinion is just asking for trouble along the lines of all the incidents which have now come to light after having been covered up for many years.  Many people are attracted to that kind of faith, knowing that they can then pursue their own personal agendas, with little fear of ever being fully held to account.

[Credo]

I suspect that the sexual abuse of children goes back for centuries.   I also suspect that most of the priests who are involved are not true pedophiles, but are attracted to teenage boys.  

 

The general disapproval of being gay made the priesthood attractive to many because they couldn't get married.   There were fewer questions about their sexuality.   Now, with more acceptance of gays and with gay marriage, I wonder if it will have any affect on the priesthood and the Church.   

[Mad mick]

mmmm

Edited May 19, 2018 by Mad mick

[spidermike007]

Lock these guys up! For a long, long time. It is incumbent upon Benedict to take this matter seriously. A priest taking advantage of young children is a truly heinous crime. Treat it as such, or lose your credibility.

[tropo]

On 5/19/2018 at 9:33 AM, tracker1 said:

Looks like it's not only Australia where the clergy have been stickin their dickin where it shouldn't have been and the Pope does nothing just waffles on !

Yeah, and all they're worried about is losing their job and titles. They need to be criminally prosecuted and put in jail to rot where other child abuses go. This smacks of favoritism. They are worse than regular abusers, because of their position. Maybe they can be sodomized in prison - an appropriate punishment.

[tropo]

On 5/19/2018 at 11:30 PM, Credo said:

I suspect that the sexual abuse of children goes back for centuries.   I also suspect that most of the priests who are involved are not true pedophiles, but are attracted to teenage boys.  

 

The general disapproval of being gay made the priesthood attractive to many because they couldn't get married.   There were fewer questions about their sexuality.   Now, with more acceptance of gays and with gay marriage, I wonder if it will have any affect on the priesthood and the Church.   

Seriously? Not true pedophiles because they are attracted to their victims?

 

A pedophile is as a pedophile does - no excuses. Lock them away. Maybe God will forgive them after they have served some serious prison time.

[tropo]

On 5/19/2018 at 12:18 PM, Ulic said:

It is worldwide. Canada, the USA, Europe, Philippines. Every country there are Catholic churches there are pedophile priests and priests that covered up for them. 

Yes, the Philippines! They abused Duterte as a child too. He has an agenda against the Catholic Church, and good on him.

 

 

Edited May 21, 2018 by tropo

[JAG]

18 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Lock these guys up! For a long, long time. It is incumbent upon Benedict to take this matter seriously. A priest taking advantage of young children is a truly heinous crime. Treat it as such, or lose your credibility.

Umh Benedict is not the Pope, has not been for several years. The current guy is called Francis.

 

I'm a Roman Catholic. I, like very many Catholics acknowledge, accept, agree, believe that the church has many deep seated problems, which include the problem of paedophillia amongst the clergy. It needs tackling. It is being tackled. It can certainly be argued that it could/should be tackled more thoroughly, speedily and effectively.

 

It is inevitable that this will attract scorn and abuse from the "cut of their goollies and fling them in prison where they can be sodomised for evermore" brigade. I wryly accept this as inevitable, in much the same way that many Muslims, Jew and Budhists must view many similar opinions.

 

I'm not accusing you, "Spidermike" of being in that aforementioned brigade. You made a reasonable post, it was let down by that simple error.

 

If people want to have a pop at the Roman Catholic Church, fair enough, after all, one of the tenets of our faith is that Almighty God imbued mankind with free will, but please get the basics, like who is it's leader on earth, right!

Edited May 22, 2018 by JAG

[CharlesSwann]

Usual knee-jerk reactions above. Seems that nobody understands the underlying forces in this issue. Very well then, get ready for another theory from the CharlesSwann stable of world-shattering ideas. I publish it here first:

 

In the course of human evolution, control became first a social, then a biological necessity for the discipline and development of the species. Someone had to keep all the unbridled macho competition—the force of reckless progression—in check. A sensitive individual in the community is not enough; what became necessary for human survival was a system developed by sensitive individuals that constrained the entire population, especially in periods of anarchy and upheaval. To see religion simply is a refuge for the sexually alienated—as it certainly is—is superficial. A proportion of society is sexually alienated by design in order to administer social control by the mystical-moral means that has, over 180,000 years or so, become known as organised religion. This not only explains the existence of religion, it explains the existence of homosexuality.

 

So you see, this is a battle against biology. As we are entering a new era of intellectual autonomy (of which atheism is the obvious manifestation), humans are now at war with their own human nature. Those hapless priests don't stand a chance.

[malagateddy]

Why is it that if someone talks to and worships an imaginary friend..he/she is considered daft/insane..yet when many people do the same..it's called religion???

Sent from my SM-G7102 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[tropo]

5 hours ago, JAG said:

 I'm a Roman Catholic. I, like very many Catholics acknowledge, accept, agree, believe that the church has many deep seated problems, which include the problem of paedophillia amongst the clergy. It needs tackling. It is being tackled. It can certainly be argued that it could/should be tackled more thoroughly, speedily and effectively.

3

Paedophilia amongst the clergy doesn't need handling or tackling by the church. Paedophiles need to be arrested and charged by the police as any other non-Catholic paedophiles would be. No special handling or privileges.