BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald
January 21, 2018
By Brian Dowling
Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, a top adviser to Pope Francis, rebuked the pontiff’s disparaging remarks targeting Chilean abuse claims, saying the comments “abandon” survivors of the church’s sex abuse crisis to “discredited exile.”
In a strongly worded statement rebuking Francis’ comments, Boston’s archbishop said the remarks were clearly “a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy or any other perpetrator.”
“Words that convey the message ‘if you cannot prove your claims then you will not be believed’ abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of their human dignity and relegate survivors to discredited exile,” O’Malley said in a statement.
Francis was leaving Chile Thursday when he accused victims of the country’s most notorious pedophile priest of having slandered another bishop, Juan Barros, by claiming Barros covered up the abuse from the Rev. Fernando Karadima.
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