UNITED STATES
Canonical Consultation
[with video]
04/01/2015
Jennifer Haselberger
There is a field of study in mathematics known as chaos theory. Students of ‘chaotic’ environments, which include natural systems such as weather and climate, note that even deterministic systems can produce unpredictable outcomes as a result of small differences in initial conditions. As a result, chaotic systems might appear predictable for a period of time, but then give way to uncertainty. Where meaningful predictions cannot be made, the system appears to be either random or ‘chaotic’.
Chaos theory might offer a helpful lens with which to consider the episcopal appointment of Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid, recently installed in a scene of utter chaos as the new bishop of Osorno, Chile (see the video above, in which protesters carrying black banners and balloons attempted to disrupt the liturgy and prevent the Bishop-elect from entering the Cathedral). Ordained an auxiliary bishop for the diocese of Valparaiso, Chile in 1995 (when he was just 38 years old), Bishop Barros had received new appointments in 2000 and 2004 without any apparent controversy. Not so, however, for the January 2015 decision, issued under Pope Francis, to appoint him as Bishop of Osorno.
Bishop Barros has not been accused of committing sexual abuse. Nor has he been accused of failing in his episcopal duties. Instead, the outcry over his appointment stems from accusations, which I have no reason to doubt, that he was complicit in abuse committed by another priest, Father Fernando Karadima. Some of the victims of Karadima, led by a fifty-one year old man named Juan Carlos Cruz, have made the following accusations against Barros, as reported in The New York Times.
Mr. Cruz and three other young men who were devoted followers of Father Karadima, and members of a Catholic youth movement he oversaw, accused him of sexually abusing them over two decades, starting when they were teenagers [other news reports indicate that the young men were between 14 and 17, so at least one was a minor given that the canonical age of majority at that time was 16]. Criminal charges were filed against the priest alleging abuse during the years 1980 to 1995, but a Chilean judge dismissed them in 2011, saying the statute of limitations had expired.
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