(31 May 2018) The key whistleblower in Chile's clerical sex abuse scandal has arrived in Rome for his audience with Pope Francis and said on April 24th 2018 he will urge the pope to get rid of the "toxic" bishops and cardinals who have defamed and discredited him and other abuse survivors around the world.
In an interview in St. Peter's Square, Juan Carlos Cruz said he was honoured that Francis wanted to apologise in person for having himself discredited victims during his January trip to Chile, one of the worst blunders of his papacy that called into question his commitment to fighting abuse and cover-up.
While Francis has blamed others for misinforming him about a Chilean bishop at the centre of the scandal, Cruz said he wanted to hear out Francis' own explanation for having seemingly been unaware that abuse victims, and not anti-church political activists, had for years publicly accused Bishop Juan Barros of witnessing and ignoring their abuse.
"He's not a pope from Ukraine. He's from Buenos Aires, which is an hour, 40 (minute) flight away," Cruz told The Associated Press. "So it's really difficult to understand that this was an unknown. But I want to hear him. I want to talk to him. I want to listen to what he has to say."
Cruz and two other abuse survivors, Jimmy Hamilton and Jose Andres Murillo, have several days of private and group meetings with Francis lined up starting April 27th.
They will be Francis' guests at the Vatican's Santa Marta hotel where he lives.
Francis invited the three to come to Rome in a complete about-face after enraging Chileans by saying in Chile that their accusations against Barros were "calumny" and demanding proof.
Francis seemed completely unaware that the men - victims of Barros' mentor, the Rev. Fernando Karadima - had placed Barros at the scene of their abuse, and that their testimony had been deemed trustworthy enough for the Vatican to use it to sentence Karadima to a lifetime of penance and prayer for his perversions.
Francis had previously accused "leftists" for mounting the opposition to Barros.
After realizing something was amiss, Francis dispatched the Vatican's top sex abuse investigator to look into the accusations against Barros.
After receiving his report, Francis issued a letter of apology to the victims, invited them to Rome and issued a stern warning to Chile's bishops, who have a history of discrediting victims, imposing minimal sentences on abusers or covering up for them entirely.
In the letter, Francis admitted he made "serious errors in judgment and perception" about the Barros case, but he blamed a lack of "truthful and balanced information" for his missteps.
Many Chileans have pointed the finger to the retired archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Javier Errazuriz, who was Barros' superior for many years and is a top adviser of Francis.
In emails, Errazuriz has referred to Cruz as a "liar" and a "serpent" out to destroy the Chilean Church.
Barros, Hamilton and Murillo sued the archdiocese for having covered up Karadima's abuse; their case is on appeal.
Cruz urged Francis to remove "toxic" leaders like Errazuriz, who this very week is in Rome attending one of Francis' regular meetings with his nine key cardinal advisers.
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Every Chilean bishop offered to resign May 18th over a sex abuse and cover-up scandal, in the biggest shakeup ever in the Catholic Church's long-running abuse saga.
At the end of an emergency summit with Pope Francis, 31 active bishops said they had signed a document offering to resign and that they were putting their fate in the hands of the pope.
And those findings were damning.
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