BONN (GERMANY)
Deutsche Welle
January 21, 2018
Pope Francis said during his trip to Chile that allegations a bishop there had known about sexual abuse were “slander.” Boston’s archbishop says those words were “a great source of pain for survivors of sexual abuse.”
The Roman Catholic Church’s chief adviser on clerical sexual abuse broke ranks with Pope Francis on Saturday after the pontiff accused Chilean abuse victims of slander.
In a rare public rebuke, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston said Pope Francis’s comments during a visit to Chile were “a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy or any other perpetrator.”
O’Malley, appearing to engage in damage control after strong reactions in Chile, said Pope Francis “fully recognizes the egregious failures of the church and its clergy who abused children and the devastating impact those crimes have had on survivors and their loved ones.”
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