CANADA
LifeSiteNews
September 4, 2018
By Maike Hickson
German national TV channel ZDF is rerunning a documentary produced last year that claims that Pope Francis, as Archbishop Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, ignored cries for justice from abuse victims in his diocese. The documentary is now gaining traction in the fallout of Archbishop Viganò’s testimony that the Pope covered-up the abuse of now ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
The documentary also claims that then-Archbishop Bergoglio, prior to becoming the pope, participated in the unsuccessful defense of a priest accused of abuse. That priest has now been imprisoned for 15 years after he was found guilty of sexually abusing children.
Now, in light of the Viganò report, the documentary by Martin Boudot has been aired again and is now making the rounds in the German-speaking world. The documentary, titled “The Silence of the Shepherds,” won the 2017 Prix Europa for best European documentaries. It is available in the U.S. under the title “Sex Abuse in the Church: the Code of Silence.”
The documentary makes the case that many priests accused of sexual abuse were merely transferred by their bishops to other countries so as to avoid prosecution. The second half of the documentary highlights Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio’s own conduct in Buenos Aires.
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