SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Reuters
June 13, 2018
By Aislinn Laing and Dave Sherwood
Chilean police and prosecutors on Wednesday launched separate and unexpected raids on Roman Catholic Church offices to seize documents relating to mounting claims of sexual abuse and cover-up.
The raids came just hours before Vatican abuse investigators sent by Pope Francis met the country’s top prosecutor to discuss collaborating on civil and canonical probes.
Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, a special envoy from the Vatican, told reporters that it was “very important” that Church and state work together to protect children alleged to have been abused by priests and clergymen.
“The canonical process should in no way impede the right of people to exercise their right to civil justice,” he said at a news conference in the capital Santiago.
Hours earlier, police and prosecutors raided the Church’s judicial office in Santiago, surprising Church leaders.
Jaime Ortiz de Lazcano, the Archbishop of Santiago’s legal advisor, said he was in a meeting with Scicluna when he was asked to go to a court hearing about the impending seizure of documents relating to an abuse case the Church had investigated in January.
“I was very surprised when they told me ‘Father, go to the court because there’s going to be a raid,’” he told reporters.
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