221 priests, 8 bishops face probes for abuse and cover-up in Chile

DENVER (CO)
Crux

By Inés San Martín

September 29, 2018

According to the latest count by the Chilean national prosecutor’s office, some 221 priests and 8 bishops are being investigated up and down the country on charges of sexual abuse and cover-up, all due to allegations made from the year 2000 to date.

In the total is Fernando Karadima, the country’s most infamous predator priest, who was removed from the clerical state by Pope Francis on Thursday in an “exceptional” decision communicated by the Vatican on Friday, the same day the man who once led an impressive lay movement in Santiago was informed.

Karadima had been found guilty by the Vatican in 2011, but instead of being removed from the priesthood at that time was sentenced to a life of penance and prayer.

To put the ongoing crisis of the Chilean Church in perspective, information gathered in three raids on two dioceses- Rancagua and Santiago- led prosecutor Emiliano Arias to open 70 investigations in the last three months. All of them, according to La Tercera, are against members of the Chilean bishops’ conference who allegedly had knowledge of abuses committed by clerics.

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.