After scandal, replacing the Catholic hierarchy in Chile

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

April 3, 2019

By Inés San Martín

To grasp the depth of Chile’s clerical sexual abuse crisis, imagine if around 68 of the United States’ 255 active Catholic bishops had been subpoenaed by civil prosecutors on suspicions of either committing the abuse of a minor, covering it up, or both.

That’s the situation in Chile, where nine of 34 bishops (27 percent) have been subpoenaed, including Cardinals Francisco Javier Errazuriz and Ricardo Ezzati, both former and current archbishops of Santiago, respectively. Errazuriz is also a former member of the council of cardinals that has been advising Pope Francis on Vatican reform.

Ezzati’s resignation was accepted by the pope March 23. The 77-year-old faces not only accusations of abuse cover-up, but is also the target of a $500,000 lawsuit involving an alleged rape at a residence in his cathedral that Ezzati allegedly failed to report.

Ezzati was replaced by Bishop Celestino Aós Bracco, who’s been appointed as apostolic administrator, meaning he’s not the new archbishop, and who himself has a troubled history on the abuse crisis.

The pontiff is having trouble finding a permanent replacement, much as he did when he replaced the other eight bishops whose resignations he accepted after last May, when every Chilean prelate offered his resignation to Francis when he summoned them to Rome. Each bishop was replaced by an apostolic administrator, rather than by a permanent replacement.

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