Three Chilean Catholics Sue Church over Sexual Abuse

Legalbrief
September 13, 2013

http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20130913081654530

Three men who say they were sexually abused as teenagers by a prominent Catholic priest filed a lawsuit this week against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santiago for failing to protect them or to investigate their accusations.

A report in The New York Times notes that Juan Carlos Cruz said that he and the others who have accused the Reverend Fernando Karadima of abusing them when he headed the El Bosque parish in Santiago in the 1980s 'hope to establish the responsibility of the church, which always knew what was going on and looked the other way'. In 2011, the Vatican found Karadima guilty of the abuses and ordered him to retire 'to a life of prayer and penitence'. The report states that a Chilean judge dismissed criminal charges later that year because a statute of limitations had expired, but he also described the accusations as 'truthful and reliable'.