VATICAN CITY
Reuters
May 15, 2018
Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Thirty-four Chilean bishops summoned to the Vatican over a cover-up of sexual abuse by clergy began crisis meetings with Pope Francis on Tuesday that could result in a purge of Chile’s Catholic hierarchy.
“We feel pain and shame,” Fernando Ramos, an auxiliary bishop of Santiago, told a news conference ahead of the three days of closed-door meetings.
The scandal has devastated the credibility of the Church in the once staunchly Catholic country. It has also hurt the pope’s own image because this year he strongly defended a bishop accused in the alleged cover-up before reversing his position.
Bishop Juan Ignacio Gonzalez of the city of San Bernardo said he could not rule out some of the tainted bishops resigning or being sacked, as many Chileans have demanded.
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