ROME/CHILE
Cruz
John L. Allen Jr.
EDITOR
News Analysis
ROME – So far, there’s been relatively little uproar outside Chile about a picture surfacing showing Pope Francis shaking hands with the late Brother Mariano Varona, considered a key figure in the burgeoning sexual abuse scandals rocking the Marist order in the country, at the end of Francis’s mid-January visit to the country.
The brief encounter came as the pope was saying goodbye to people who live in the vicinity of the Vatican ambassador’s residence where he’d been staying, and Varano has subsequently died.
The story seemingly had all the elements to become a Kim Daniels Affair 2.0, referring to the fracas that broke out after Francis met the controversial Kentucky county clerk who defied a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, in a brief greeting along with many other people during his September 2015 trip to the United States.
While details remain contested of how the Davis meeting came about, and how much the pope had been briefed on her background, it seems clear Francis wasn’t aware of how controversial the encounter would be, perhaps especially among his most ardent supporters.
Then as now, the obvious questions are: Did the pope really know who this person was? And, was the meet-and-greet intended to make some sort of statement?
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