DENVER (CO)
Crux
July 23, 2018
By Inés San Martín
Vatican City – Despite repeated attempts to distance himself from his country’s sexual abuse crisis, including recently asserting there’s a climate of “slander” against the Catholic Church, Chilean Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati of Santiago is facing mounting scrutiny for his role in the scandals both from outside the Church and in.
The latest headache for Ezzati, who heads the Archdiocese of Santiago, Chile’s capital, has come with the revelation of a letter by a brother archbishop, Alejandro Goic, who until recently led the Archdiocese of Rancagua.
Pope Francis accepted Goic’s resignation in June, after the bishop acknowledged he’d taken too long to respond to accusations that priests in his diocese were involved in a ring of abuses, including homosexuality and prostitution. A few days earlier, Goic had resigned his position as head of a national commission for abuse prevention.
On Sunday, a Chilean newspaper published a letter Goic had written as head of that commission on June 11, 2013, which was addressed to Ezzati.
“Sometimes I have the impression, perhaps subjective, that you don’t share the criteria of the national commission in these delicate issues,” he said, referring to the child abuse scandals.
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