CHILE/ROME
Reuters
December 14, 2018
By Antonio De la Jara
An Irish-born priest, who was convicted of sexually abusing a girl in his care at a religious school in Santiago but served no jail time for the offense, left Chile on Friday for Rome after serving a four-year sentence.
Critics have long pointed to the case of the Rev. John O’Reilly as an example of leniency in a country where the Roman Catholic church has long held powerful sway in politics and society.
A judge in 2014 sentenced O’Reilly, a leader of the Legionaries of Christ religious order, to four years of “supervised liberty” for abusing a preteen girl at the private Colegio Cumbres in the affluent neighborhood of Las Condes between 2007 and 2009.
O’Reilly completed his sentence on Dec. 10, according to a statement issued by the Legionaries of Christ on Friday, and Chilean courts subsequently expelled him from the country.
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