MEDELLIN (COLOMBIA)
Colombia Reports
May 15, 2019
By Adam Veitch
Colombia’s Catholic Church is facing around 100 criminal investigations involving sexual abuse, the religious institution’s leader admitted Wednesday.
Cardinal Ruben Salazar admitted to the ongoing criminal investigations in an interview with El Tiempo, but downplayed the gravity of the sexual abuse claims, saying that sexual abuse by priests is “not an epidemic.”
The national church leader promised an investigation into historical child sex abuse in Colombia “as soon as we have a sufficiently qualified team and the resources to carry it out.”
The Catholic Church’s history of abuse in Colombia
Despite evidence to the contrary, Salazar told El Tiempo that there was no culture of covering up child abuse within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
knowing the bishops in this country as I do, I can tell you that no point has it ever been our desire to obscure the facts
Over the past few years, several cases of abuse have come to light in which church authorities in Colombia have been at best negligent in ensuring the welfare of young victims, and at worst complicit in endangering it.
Journalists reporting on these abuse cases suffered harassment allegedly orchestrated by church leaders.
One particular practice employed by the church hierarchy has been that of transferring priests facing child abuse accusations rather than reporting them to legal authorities.
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