NEW YORK (NY)
National Catholic Reporter
February 17, 2018
By Peter Feuerherd
Juan Carlos Cruz, who has accused a Chilean bishop of witnessing and covering up for sex abuse he endured as a minor, met here Feb. 17 with Archbishop Charles Scicluna, a representative of Pope Francis. “For the first time, I felt someone was listening,” Cruz said after emerging from the three-hour meeting.
On January 30, the Vatican announced that Scicluna, a Maltese archbishop, would collect testimony about Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid of Osorno, Chile. Barros has been accused by Cruz, who now resides in the Philadelphia area, and two other men, of witnessing Fr. Fernando Karadima sexually abuse them when they were minors.
Scicluna will travel to Chile to continue the investigation. Karadima, now 87, was a charismatic church leader in Chile. A Chilean court declined to rule on the case because of a statute of limitations, with a judge emphasizing that the case did not lack for evidence.
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