Pope Francis will personally apologise to Chilean sexual abuse survivors next weekend when he hosts them as guests at his Santa Marta residence inside the Vatican. Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of a notorious priest abuser in Chile, says he and two others will be in Rome on 28-29 April so that Francis can personally apologise to them for his response to their testimonies.
In 2015, the Pope appointed Bishop Juan Barros to lead the Diocese of Osorno despite complaints that Barros had witnessed abuse committed by Fr Fernando Karadima. Then, during his visit to Chile in January, Francis said those accusing Barros of a cover-up were guilty of calumny.
Last week, however, the Pope issued an extraordinary mea culpa, admitting “serious mistakes” in his handling of the sexual abuse scandal in Chile and asking “forgiveness for all those I have offended.” In a letter to the Chilean bishops, Francis said he had received a “lack of truthful and balanced information” and had summoned the country’s hierarchy to Rome to discuss the crisis. This meeting is expected to take place during the third week of May.
Before this takes place, the Pope has pledged personally to apologise to victims. Mr Cruz has said that he and two other vocal Chilean abuse survivors, Jimmy Hamilton and José Andrés Murillo, will meet the Argentinian Pope privately and as a group. Mr Cruz told the Associated Press that the Pope wants to spend time with them over the 28-29 weekend while victims and survivors have welcomed the Pope’s letter and plan of action.
Francis’ apology is one of the most dramatic papal admissions of personal failings in recent years. Throughout his pontificate, John Paul II made repeated apologies on behalf of the Church as an institution, including a dramatic all-encompassing one in 2000. Benedict XVI apologised later to Irish victims of clerical abuse, telling them: “You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry.”
Francis’ apology is different because it involves him saying sorry for his own actions.
Throughout his papacy, he has been accused of failing to grasp the full scale of the abuse problem. A commission that he set up for the protection of children saw the resignations of victims who were members, while the Pope softened the sentence of one abuser, a decision that was later reversed.
Speaking to The Tablet following the Pope’s apology, a leading Church child protection expert says it shows Francis is intent on getting to the root cause of cover-ups. Fr Hans Zollner, president of the Centre for Child Protection in Rome and member of the papal anti-abuse commission, said Francis had been right not to remove Barros immediately, but to first seek a better understanding of the clerical sexual abuse crisis in Chile. “There is always a danger to deal just with symptoms rather than root causes,” Fr Zollner told The Tablet. “I appreciate the Pope’s willingness to confront this issue ... in a reflective and deliberate fashion. [He] has not pushed for an immediate reaction by removing Bishop Barros, but instead realises that the Church in Chile needs more thorough and serious analysis. Only then should any action be taken.”
Francis issued his letter after commissioning Archbishop Charles Scicluna, a former chief prosecutor of abuse cases, to investigate. The archbishop returned with a 2,300-page report that is believed to go far beyond just the Barros case.
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