After scandal, head of Chilean Church’s anti-abuse panel resigns

ROME
CRUX

May 27, 2018

By Inés San Martín

A Chilean bishop who’s acknowledged he was slow in investigating allegations of abuse and misconduct in his diocese resigned as president of the Chilean Church’s National Commission for the Prevention of Abuses.

The announcement was made by the Chilean bishops’ conference, which said on Saturday that it had accepted the resignation of Bishop Alejando Goic of Rancagua from the commission. At this point, he continues as the head of his diocese.

Together with most of Chile’s active bishops, Goic presented his resignation to Pope Francis mid-May. The prelates were summoned by the pontiff to Rome to discuss a crisis in the local Church, a product of decades of abuses and cover-ups and which began detonating in early 2015, when the pontiff appointed Bishop Juan Barros, accused of covering up for the country’s most notorious pedophile priest, to the southern diocese of Osorno.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.