VATICAN CITY
Associated Press
May 13, 2019
NICOLE WINFIELD
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Chile’s Catholic bishops said Monday they were open to whatever Pope Francis proposes to overhaul the Chilean church, including the removal of bishops, reforms of seminaries and paying financial reparation to victims of a clergy sex abuse and cover-up scandal.
Representatives of the Chilean bishops conference told reporters they were heading into three days of meetings with Francis humbled, pained and shamed for their own errors in handling abuse cases. They said they wanted to listen to Francis and would follow his lead in asking forgiveness of the victims they had discredited.
A conference spokesman, Bishop Juan Ignacio Gonzalez, said “it’s possible” some bishops would offer to resign, but that it was up to the pope. “We’ll respect what he says. If he asks, we’ll do it,” he said.
Francis summoned the bishops to Rome for an emergency summit after receiving a 2,300-page report on the abuse cover-up scandal, which he had helped fuel. During a visit to Chile in January, Francis strongly defended a bishop, Juan Barros, who was accused by victims of Chile’s most notorious predator priest of having witnessed and ignored their abuse.
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