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Letter Suggests Pope Knew About Abuse Complaints, Despite Denials
Things keep getting worse for Pope Francis.
Late last month, the pope reiterated his defense of a Chilean bishop,
contending that he had never received any complaints that the prelate
knew of abuse by the country’s most notorious pedophile priest.
But
on Monday, The Associated Press reported that the pope personally
received an eight-page letter in 2015 from one of the victims. The
letter explicitly detailed abuses the victim said were witnessed by
other clerics, including Juan Barros Madrid, who was appointed bishop of
Osorno, Chile, that year.
The
report that one of the pope’s top advisers had personally handed him
the letter has revived accusations by advocates for abuse victims that
the 81-year-old pontiff cannot, or will not, understand an issue that
has long roiled the Roman Catholic Church.
“There
is what you might call a willful blindness,” said Peter Saunders, a
former member of the pope’s Commission for the Protection of Minors,
whose mandate expired in December. “It’s almost angry unwillingness to
accept what in front of him, because to acknowledge it is to acknowledge
that the church still has to clean up its act. He’s been behaving like a
spouse who is told that their spouse is abusing their kids, and can’t
believe it.”
A
copy of the letter was provided to The New York Times by its author,
Juan Carlos Cruz, who has accused the Rev. Fernando Karadima, once one
of Chile’s most prominent Catholic priests, of abuse. The church has
found Father Karadima guilty of abusing minors from 1980 to 1995 and penalized him in 2011.
In the letter, Mr. Cruz wrote that Bishop Barros, who was a priest at the time, witnessed the abuse.
Pope Francis has repeatedly discounted the accusations against Bishop Barros as slander, and his defense of him cast a shadow over a trip he made to Chile in January. Last week, facing mounting criticism for siding with clergy members over victims, the pope sent the Vatican’s top sex crimes investigator to Chile to hear their accusations.
The disclosure of the letter has raised difficult questions for the pope.
Did
he read the letter and decide not to tell reporters about it? Did he
choose to believe Bishop Barros over Mr. Cruz? Or did he never read the
letter, or perhaps read it but forget about it.
For Mr. Cruz, the pope has become “just like the others.”
“He covers up and doesn’t listen to the victims,” he said.
Some veteran Vatican analysts said that perhaps the pope had information not available to other people.
Marco
Politi, a Vatican expert and the author of the book “Pope Francis Among
the Wolves,” said the pope’s continued belief in the innocence of
Bishop Barros must have been based on an internal investigation. If the
pope erred, Mr. Politi said, “it was that he did not send Bishop Charles
Scicluna earlier.” Bishop Scicluna is the investigator the pope sent to
Chile.
The
case against Bishop Barros erupted in 2015 when the pope named him, a
former chaplain in the Chilean armed forces, to lead the Osorno diocese
amid widespread protest. Bishop Barros has denied knowing about the
abuse until 2010, when accounts emerged in the news media.
Concerned
by the accusations against the Chilean bishop, members of the
Commission for the Protection of Minors traveled to Rome so that they
could deliver Mr. Cruz’s letter to the pope.
“We
all felt that the Barros appointment had been a mistake, and when Juan
Carlos told me he had been trying to be heard, we thought that this was
an opportunity to get the details directly to the pope,” said Marie
Collins, a survivor of abuse who resigned from the commission
last year in frustration over its inaction. “If Barros hadn’t
recognized abuse when it had happened under his eyes, it was difficult
to see how those in his diocese would be properly protected,” she said.
In
April 2015, four members of the commission met with Cardinal Sean
O’Malley, who led the commission, in the Casa Santa Marta, where the
pope lives. Ms. Collins asked him to personally deliver the letter to
Francis.
They
commemorated the moment when they delivered Mr. Cruz’s letter with a
photograph. “We thought it would be nice for the survivors of abuse to
know that we were doing the best that we could do for them,” Ms. Collins
said.
The
working group issued a statement at the time saying that it was
essential for a bishop to enact effective policies and monitor
compliance, “in the light that sexual abuse is so common,” but did not
mention Mr. Cruz’s letter.
At
the commission’s next meeting several weeks later, Cardinal O’Malley
confirmed that he had delivered the letter to the pope, Ms. Collins
said. Mr. Cruz said Cardinal O’Malley had told him that he delivered the
letter himself.
Last
month, after the pope’s remarks dismissing allegations against Bishop
Barros as “slander,” Cardinal O’Malley issued a remarkable defense of
the victims.
Delivering
the letter was the only time, as far as Ms. Collins knows, that members
of the commission tried to speak to the pope about a specific case, she
said. But she also said that while she is convinced that the letter was
given to the pope, she cannot be sure if he read it.
“I
have no idea because he has continued to support Barros over three
years, and never met with the survivors,” she said. “I can’t judge. The
pope is a good man. I have no idea why he wouldn’t have considered the
concerns of the members of his commission.”
The
new commission for the protection of minors — whose members have not
been announced — is expected to hold its first plenary session in April.
Mr. Saunders, who was dismissed from the commission in 2016
for being too outspoken, was also present at the April 2015 meeting.
The commission members had hoped to speak directly with the pope, but
instead met with Cardinal O’Malley, he recalled.
“O’Malley said the letter would be handed to Francis, who I think was literally in the next room,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/world/europe/pope-sex-abuse-barros-karadima.html?emc=edit_tnt_20180205&nlid=32999454&tntemail0=y