UNITED STATES
Sojourners
By Mathew Schmalz, The Conversation 4-17-2018
In a letter on April 11 to the bishops of Chile, Pope Francis asked forgiveness for his “serious errors of assessment and perception.” His apologies were directed to the victims of Fr. Fernando Karadima, whose abuse of at least three men when they were children was witnessed and covered up by Chilean Bishop Juan Barros. Until recently, Pope Francis had maintained that Bishop Barros was actually the victim of “slander.” In 2011, the then 80-year-old Fr. Karadina was found guilty by a Vatican tribunal, and sentenced to a life of “prayer and penance.”
In times past, a personal apology from the pope would have been close to unthinkable.
Popes can make mistakes
Catholics believe the pope is the successor to the Apostle Peter, one of the first followers of Jesus. But Peter was a flawed human being: When confronted by a crowd, he denied his association with Jesus three times. Afterwards, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Peter “wept bitterly.”
For Catholics, Peter’s experience shows that even those specially chosen by God have deep-seated weaknesses for which they must show sorrow.
Popes are not always right in what they do, but their errors have been admitted only years – sometimes centuries – later. In 1992, for example, John Paul II apologized for the Catholic Church’s condemnation of Galileo that happened over 350 years earlier.
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