RANCAGUA (CHILE)
AFP
August 18, 2018
By Ana Fernandez
The prosecutor in charge of investigating a massive sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Chile said several bishops could face charges after he questions the Cardinal Archbishop of Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, for the first time next week.
Prosecutor Emiliano Arias will on Tuesday take a statement from Ezzati, the head of the church in Chile, who has denied allegations that he covered up cases of abuse, including those by a top aide who was jailed earlier this year.
Other bishops “whose actions are being analyzed, could also be accused,” Arias told AFP in an interview at the Rancagua prosecutor’s office 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Santiago.
State prosecutors began investigating scores of abuse cases last month after outrage around the country over the church’s own probe into decades of abuse by priests, crimes over which it often failed to take any action or handed down too-lenient punishments. Now bishops and other priests accused of abuse in Chile will face the full force of secular law.
Arias said he will have to determine if Ezzati “fulfilled or failed to fulfill his obligations” to protect victims and enforce church regulations.
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