By Nicole Winfield and Eva Vergara, Rome, February 5, 2018<\/p>\n
VATICAN CITY (AP) \u2014 Pope Francis received a victim\u2019s letter in 2015 that graphically detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how other Chilean clergy ignored it, contradicting the pope\u2019s recent insistence that no victims had come forward to denounce the cover-up, the letter\u2019s author and members of Francis\u2019 own sex- abuse commission have told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
The fact that Francis received the eight-page letter, obtained by the AP, challenges his insistence that he has \u201czero tolerance\u201d for sex abuse and cover-ups. It also calls into question his stated empathy with abuse survivors, compounding the most serious crisis of his five-year papacy. The scandal exploded last month when Francis\u2019 trip to South America was marred by protests over his vigorous defense of Bishop Juan Barros, who is accused by victims of witnessing and ignoring the abuse by the Rev. Fernando Karadima. During the trip, Francis callously dismissed accusations against Barros as \u201cslander,\u201d seemingly unaware that victims had placed Barros at the scene of Karadima\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n
On the plane home, confronted by an AP reporter, the pope said: \u201cYou, in all good will, tell me that there are victims, but I haven\u2019t seen any, because they haven\u2019t come forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pope Francis received a victim\u2019s letter in 2015 that detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how other clergy ignored it, contradicting the pope\u2019s recent insistence that no victims had come forward, according to the letter\u2019s author. (Feb. 5)<\/p>\n
But members of the pope\u2019s Commission for the Protection of Minors say that in April 2015, they sent a delegation to Rome specifically to hand-deliver a letter to the pope about Barros. The letter from Juan Carlos Cruz detailed the abuse, kissing and fondling he says he suffered at Karadima\u2019s hands, which he said Barros and others saw but did nothing to stop.<\/p>\n
Four members of the commission met with Francis\u2019 top abuse adviser, Cardinal Sean O\u2019Malley, explained their concerns about Francis\u2019 recent appointment of Barros as a bishop in southern Chile, and gave him the letter to deliver to Francis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we gave him (O\u2019Malley) the letter for the pope, he assured us he would give it to the pope and speak of the concerns,\u201d then-commission member Marie Collins told the AP. \u201cAnd at a later date, he assured us that that had been done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz, who now lives and works in Philadelphia, heard the same later that year.<\/p>\n
\u201cCardinal O\u2019Malley called me after the pope\u2019s visit here in Philadelphia and he told me, among other things, that he had given the letter to the pope \u2014 in his hands,\u201d he said in an interview at his home Sunday.<\/p>\n
Neither the Vatican nor O\u2019Malley responded to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n
While the 2015 summit of Francis\u2019 commission was known and publicized at the time, the contents of Cruz\u2019s letter \u2014 and a photograph of Collins handing it to O\u2019Malley \u2014 were not disclosed by members. Cruz provided the letter, and Collins provided the photo, after reading an AP story that reported Francis had claimed to have never heard from any Karadima victims about Barros\u2019 behavior.<\/p>\n
The revelation could be costly for Francis, whose track record on the abuse crisis was already shaky after a botched Italian abuse case he intervened in became public, More recently, he let the abuse commission lapse at the end of last year. Vatican analysts now openly question whether he \u201cgets it,\u201d and some of his own advisers privately acknowledge that maybe he doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The Barros affair first caused shockwaves in January 2015 when Francis appointed him bishop of Osorno, Chile, over the objections of the leadership of Chile\u2019s bishops\u2019 conference and many local priests and laity. They accepted as credible the testimony against Karadima, a prominent Chilean cleric who was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2011 for abusing minors. Barros was a Karadima protege, and according to Cruz and other victims, he witnessed the abuse and did nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHoly Father, I write you this letter because I\u2019m tired of fighting, of crying and suffering,\u201d Cruz wrote in Francis\u2019 native Spanish. \u201cOur story is well known and there\u2019s no need to repeat it, except to tell you of the horror of having lived this abuse and how I wanted to kill myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz and other survivors had for years denounced the cover-up of Karadima\u2019s crimes, but were dismissed by some in the Chilean church hierarchy and the Vatican\u2019s own ambassador in Santiago, who refused their repeated requests to meet before and after Barros was appointed.<\/p>\n
After Francis\u2019 comments backing Barros caused such an outcry in Chile, he was forced last week to do an about-face: The Vatican announced it was sending in its most respected sex-crimes investigator to take testimony from Cruz and others about Barros.<\/p>\n
In the letter to the pope, Cruz begs for Francis to listen to him and make good on his pledge of \u201czero tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHoly Father, it\u2019s bad enough that we suffered such tremendous pain and anguish from the sexual and psychological abuse, but the terrible mistreatment we received from our pastors is almost worse,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Cruz goes on to detail in explicit terms the homo-eroticized nature of the circle of priests and young boys around Karadima, the charismatic preacher whose El Bosque community in the well-to-do Santiago neighborhood of Providencia produced dozens of priestly vocations and five bishops, including Barros.<\/p>\n
He described how Karadima would kiss Barros and fondle his genitals, and do the same with younger priests and teens, and how young priests and seminarians would fight to sit next to Karadima at the table to receive his affections.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore difficult and tough was when we were in Karadima\u2019s room and Juan Barros \u2014 if he wasn\u2019t kissing Karadima \u2014 would watch when Karadima would touch us \u2014 the minors \u2014 and make us kiss him, saying: \u2018Put your mouth near mine and stick out your tongue.\u2019 He would stick his out and kiss us with his tongue,\u201d Cruz told the pope. \u201cJuan Barros was a witness to all this innumerable times, not just with me but with others as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJuan Barros covered up everything that I have told you,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Barros has repeatedly denied witnessing any abuse or covering it up. \u201cI never knew anything about, nor ever imagined, the serious abuses which that priest committed against the victims,\u201d he told the AP recently. \u201cI have never approved of nor participated in such serious, dishonest acts, and I have never been convicted by any tribunal of such things.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the Osorno faithful who have opposed Barros as their bishop, the issue isn\u2019t so much a legal matter requiring proof or evidence, as Barros was a young priest at the time and not in a position of authority over Karadima. It\u2019s more that if Barros didn\u2019t \u201csee\u201d what was happening around him and recognize it was problematic for a priest to kiss and fondle young boys, he shouldn\u2019t be in charge of a diocese where he is responsible for detecting inappropriate sexual behavior, reporting it to police and protecting children from pedophiles like his mentor.<\/p>\n
Cruz had arrived at Karadima\u2019s community in 1980 as a vulnerable teenager, distraught after the recent death of his father. He has said Karadima told him he would be like a spiritual father to him, but instead sexually abused him.<\/p>\n
Based on testimony from Cruz and other former members of the parish, the Vatican in 2011 removed Karadima from ministry and sentenced him to a lifetime of \u201cpenance and prayer\u201d for his crimes. Now 87, he lives in a home for elderly priests in Santiago; he hasn\u2019t commented on the scandal and the home has declined to accept calls or visits from the news media.<\/p>\n
The victims also testified to Chilean prosecutors, who opened an investigation into Karadima after they went public with their accusations in 2010. Chilean prosecutors had to drop charges because too much time had passed, but the judge running the case stressed that it wasn\u2019t for lack of proof.<\/p>\n
While the victims\u2019 testimony was deemed credible by both Vatican and Chilean prosecutors, some in the local church hierarchy clearly didn\u2019t believe them, which might have influenced Francis\u2019 view. Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz has acknowledged he didn\u2019t believe the victims initially and shelved an investigation. He was forced to reopen it when the victims went public, and has since apologized.<\/p>\n
He is now one of the Argentine pope\u2019s key cardinal advisers.<\/p>\n
By the time he finally got his letter into the pope\u2019s hands in 2015, Cruz had already sent versions to many other people, and had tried for months to get an appointment with the Vatican ambassador to relay concerns about Barros\u2019 suitability for diocesan work. The embassy\u2019s Dec. 15, 2014, email to Cruz \u2014 a month before Barros was appointed \u2014 was short and to the point:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe apostolic nunciature has received the message you emailed Dec. 7 to the apostolic nuncio,\u201d it read, \u201cand at the same time communicates that your request has been met with an unfavorable response.\u201d<\/p>\n
One could argue that Francis didn\u2019t pay attention to Cruz\u2019s letter, since he receives thousands of letters every day from faithful around the world. He can\u2019t possibly read them all, much less remember the contents years later. He might have been tired and confused after a weeklong trip to South America when he told an airborne press conference that victims never came forward to accuse Barros of cover-up.<\/p>\n
But this was not an ordinary letter, nor were the circumstances under which it arrived in the Vatican.<\/p>\n
Francis had named O\u2019Malley, the archbishop of Boston, to head his Commission for the Protection of Minors based on his credibility in having helped clean up the mess in Boston after the U.S. sex abuse scandal exploded there in 2002. The commission gathered outside experts to advise the church on protecting children from pedophiles and educating church personnel about preventing abuse and cover-ups.<\/p>\n
The four commission members who were on a special subcommittee dedicated to survivors had flown to Rome specifically to speak with O\u2019Malley about the Barros appointment and to deliver Cruz\u2019s letter. A press release issued after the April 12, 2015, meeting read: \u201cCardinal O\u2019Malley agreed to present the concerns of the subcommittee to the Holy Father.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commission member Catherine Bonnet, a French child psychiatrist who took the photo of Collins handing the letter to O\u2019Malley, said the commission members had decided to descend on Rome specifically when O\u2019Malley and other members of the pope\u2019s group of nine cardinal advisers were meeting, so that O\u2019Malley could put it directly into the pope\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cCardinal O\u2019Malley promised us when Marie gave to him the letter of Juan Carlos that he will give to Pope Francis,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Malley\u2019s spokesman in Boston referred requests for comment to the Vatican. Neither the Vatican press office, nor officials at the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, responded to calls and emails seeking comment.<\/p>\n
But O\u2019Malley\u2019s remarkable response to Francis\u2019 defense of Barros and to his dismissal of the victims while he was in Chile, is perhaps now better understood.<\/p>\n
In a rare rebuke of a pope by a cardinal, O\u2019Malley issued a statement Jan. 20 in which he said the pope\u2019s words were \u201ca source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse,\u201d and that such expressions had the effect of abandoning victims and relegating them to \u201cdiscredited exile.\u201d<\/p>\n
A day later, Francis apologized for having demanded \u201cproof\u201d of wrongdoing by Barros, saying he meant merely that he wanted to see \u201cevidence.\u201d But he continued to describe the accusations against Barros as \u201ccalumny\u201d and insisted he had never heard from any victims.<\/p>\n
Even when told in his airborne press conference Jan. 21 that Karadima\u2019s victims had indeed placed Barros at the scene of Karadima\u2019s abuse, Francis said: \u201cNo one has come forward. They haven\u2019t provided any evidence for a judgment. This is all a bit vague. It\u2019s something that can\u2019t be accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stood by Barros, saying: \u201cI\u2019m certain he\u2019s innocent,\u201d even while saying that he considered the testimony of victims to be \u201cevidence\u201d in a cover-up investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone can give me evidence, I\u2019ll be the first to listen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cruz said he felt like he had been slapped when he heard those words.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was upset,\u201d he said, \u201cand at the same time I couldn\u2019t believe that someone so high up like the pope himself could lie about this.\u201d<\/p>\n