VATICAN CITY
Crux
Inés San Martín
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT
Pope Francis acknowledged that he has made “serious errors of assessment and perception” in the case of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, who has been accused of covering up for a pedophile priest and whom the pontiff has repeatedly defended.
“I recognize and I want you to communicate this accurately, that I have made serious errors of judgement and perception of the situation, especially due to lack of truthful and balanced information,” Francis wrote in a letter to the Chilean bishops.
In the following weeks, Francis will meet with some victims of clerical sexual abuse from Chile, who will travel to Rome and individually ask for forgiveness, according to the spokesman for the Chilean bishops’ conference.
Ahead of those meetings, announced by spokesman Jaime Coiro via Twitter as the letter was being read out in Chile, Francis said that “from this moment, I apologize to all those whom I offended and I hope to be able to do it personally, in the coming weeks, in the meetings that I will have with representatives of the people interviewed.”
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