Chilean clerical sex abuse victim urges pope to fire “toxic” bishops

VATICAN CITY
euronews

24/04/2018

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A Chilean man who was sexually abused by a priest as a boy will urge Pope Francis to sack “toxic” bishops who covered up the assaults, he said on Tuesday ahead of a face-to-face meeting with the leader of the Catholic Church.

Juan Carlos Cruz, who has become a symbol of the Church’s abuse crisis, will spend several days in the Vatican as a guest of the pope in the residence where he lives. Strong papal action in Chile would send a long-overdue message to the entire Church, he told Reuters in an interview.

“I would say ‘hold these bishops accountable, fire a few of them, if not many of them, but fire them and not give them a cushy job here at the Vatican,’” Cruz said.

“Like in a company (I would say) ‘you need to be preparing your resumé’. That’s what I would say to these bishops.”

Cruz and two other victims, Jimmy Hamilton and Jose Andres Murillo, are each due to spend several hours with the pope on a visit that follows an extraordinary April 11 letter in which Francis acknowledged he had made “grave mistakes” in handling the sexual abuse crisis in Chile.

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