VATICAN CITY
Reuters
Crispian Balmer
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – In an unprecedented move, all Chile’s bishops offered to resign en masse on Friday after attending a crisis meeting this week with Pope Francis about the cover-up of sexual abuse in the south American nation.
It is the first time that all the senior Roman Catholic prelates of a country have taken such a step, a Vatican official said, underscoring the damage being wreaked on the church by seemingly never-ending clerical abuse scandals.
It was not immediately clear if the pope would accept all or any of the resignations of the 34 bishops, and a Vatican official declined to speculate on when he might make a decision.
“We have put our positions in the hands of the Holy Father and will leave it to him to decide freely for each of us,” the bishops said in a joint statement read out by a spokesman for them, Bishop Fernando Ramos.
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