VATICAN CITY
Associated Press
By NICOLE WINFIELD and EVA VERGARA
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Chile’s Catholic Church is bracing for revelations from a letter from Pope Francis to the country’s bishops following a scandal over his strong defense of a bishop accused of witnessing and ignoring sex abuse by Chile’s most notorious predator priest.
Jaime Coiro, spokesman for the Chilean bishops’ conference, said the letter would be released later Wednesday in both Chile and at the Vatican. In a tweet, Coiro said the pope wrote it after receiving a report by Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s longtime sex abuse prosecutor.
Francis sent Scicluna to investigate allegations of sex abuse cover-up by Bishop Juan Barros, a protege of the Rev. Fernando Karadima.
Karadima was a charismatic preacher who was removed from ministry by the Vatican for sexually abusing minors and sentenced in 2011 to a lifetime of penance and prayer. Karadima had long been a darling of the Catholic hierarchy, and his victims have accused church leaders of covering up his crimes to protect the church’s reputation.
Scicluna and his colleague, the Rev. Jordi Bertomeu, spent nearly two weeks in Chile and New York earlier this year interviewing Karadima’s victims, who for years have denounced Barros’ silence and were stunned by Francis’ strong defense of him during his January visit to Chile.
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