Pope Wrote a Letter to Catholics in Chile

by Kilian SC · June 18, 2018

Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta speaks during a press conference accompanied in Santiago, Chile. He is accompanied by Father Jordi Bertomeu Farnos, right, an official of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation. (CNS photo/Alberto Valdes, EPA)

In a letter to Catholics in Chile, Pope Francis expressed shame for the Church’s failure to listen and defend survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy. The letter came shortly before Pope Francis accepted the resignation of three Chilean Bishops after the entire episcopate resigned after scandals rocked the Chilean Church.

Released by the Chilean bishops’ conference, the letter from the pope said that the time of “revision and purification” in the Church was possible through the efforts of abuse survivors “who, against all hope or painted as discredited, did not tire of looking for the truth”.

They are “victims whose cries reached to heaven. I would like to once again publicly thank all of them for the courage and perseverance”, the pope wrote.

The Vatican announced that Pope Francis has sent Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta and Fr Jordi Bertomeu Farnos back to Chile and visit the diocese of Osorno “with the aim of advancing the process of reparation and healing of abuse victims”.

In his message, the pope said it has been a “time of listening and discernment” for the Church to get to the root of the sexual abuse crisis in the Chilean Church and to find concrete solutions and not “mere strategies of containment”.

He also acknowledged the Church’s shortcomings in not listening to survivors of abuse.

“Here, I believe, lies one our principal faults and omissions: to not know how to listen to victims. Thus, partial conclusions were built that lacked crucial elements for a healthy and clear discernment. I must say with shame that we did not know how to listen and react in time,” the pope wrote.

The Church, he continued, must say “never again” to a culture that not only allowed sexual abuses to occur but also “considered a critical and questioning attitude as betrayal”.

“The culture of abuse and cover up is incompatible with the logic of the Gospel given that the salvation offered by Christ is always an offering, a gift that demands and requires freedom,” the pope said.

The pope also encouraged Chilean Catholics to continue their devotion to popular piety which is “one of the few areas where the people of God is above the influence of that clericalism that seeks to control and restrain the anointment of God upon the people”.

“A Church with wounds doesn’t place itself at the centre, it doesn’t think itself perfect, it doesn’t look to cover up and conceal its evil, but instead places them before the only one who can heal wounds and he has a name: Jesus Christ.— By Junno Arocho Esteves, CNS