IRELAND
The Irish Catholic
by Greg Daly
October 8, 2015
The sole Irish member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has said she is “disappointed” with comments by Pope Francis recorded in a five-month-old video that was made public last week.
Abuse survivor Marie Collins was responding to a video in which the Pontiff was recorded speaking to the former spokesman for Chile’s bishops, who said the Chilean Church was “praying and suffering” for him.
The Pope promptly said the Church in Chile has “lost its head” over his controversial appointment of Bishop Juan Barros to head the Diocese of Osorno, urging him against being “led around by the nose by these leftists who are the ones who put this [opposition] together”.
Dr Barros’s appointment this March was widely opposed in Chile, with 51 of the country’s 120 parliamentarians having – along with over 30 clergy and 1,300 lay people from Osorno – written to Rome in protest. Despite a Vatican investigation into claims against him, he is widely regarded as a defender of his one-time mentor, Fr Fernando Karadima, a prominent priest who the Vatican in 2011 found guilty of abuse and sentenced to a life of “prayer and penance”.
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