URUGUAY
Washington Post
By Leonardo Haberkorn | AP April 14
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — The Roman Catholic Church in Uruguay apologized Thursday for sexual abuses committed by priests 20 years ago that went unpunished because the statute of limitations expired.
Uruguay’s Episcopal Conference said in a letter on its website that it feels “pain and shame” about the “abhorent acts committed by people who had promised to serve God and neighbor.”
The letter comes after news reports on abuses by priests in the South American country.
“We all know how, unfortunately, acts like these have been denounced for years in several countries, but they can never be justified within the church,” the letter said, adding that the predator priests must be held responsible before “God and the courts.”
The Episcopal Conference said the church launched an investigation after it received reports of three cases of people abused by priests while in their teens. The allegations led one man to leave the priesthood and another was removed after an investigation, said Assistant Bishop Milton Troccoli, the Episcopal Conference’s spokesman.
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