By Elisabetta Povoledo, Feb. 6, 2018<\/p>\n
ROME \u2014 Things keep getting worse for Pope Francis.<\/p>\n
Late last month, the pope reiterated his defense of a Chilean bishop<\/a>, contending that he had never received any complaints that the prelate knew of abuse by the country\u2019s most notorious pedophile priest.<\/p>\n But on Monday, The Associated Press reported that the pope personally received an eight-page letter in 2015 from one of the victims. The letter explicitly detailed abuses the victim said were witnessed by other clerics, including Juan Barros Madrid, who was appointed bishop of Osorno, Chile, that year.<\/p>\n The report that one of the pope\u2019s top advisers had personally handed him the letter has revived accusations by advocates for abuse victims that the 81-year-old pontiff cannot, or will not, understand an issue that has long roiled the Roman Catholic Church.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is what you might call a willful blindness,\u201d said Peter Saunders, a former member of the pope\u2019s Commission for the Protection of Minors, whose mandate expired in December. \u201cIt\u2019s almost angry unwillingness to accept what\u2019s in front of him, because to acknowledge it is to acknowledge that the church still has to clean up its act. He\u2019s been behaving like a spouse who is told that their spouse is abusing their kids, and can\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n A copy of the letter was provided to The New York Times by its author, Juan Carlos Cruz, who has accused the Rev. Fernando Karadima, once one of Chile\u2019s most prominent Catholic priests, of abuse. The church has found Father Karadima<\/a> guilty of abusing minors from 1980 to 1995 and penalized him in 2011.<\/p>\n In the letter, Mr. Cruz wrote that Bishop Barros, who was a priest at the time, witnessed the abuse.<\/p>\n Pope Francis has repeatedly<\/a> discounted the accusations against Bishop Barros as slander, and his defense of him cast a shadow<\/a> over a trip he made to Chile in January. Last week, facing mounting criticism for siding with clergy members over victims, the pope<\/a> sent<\/a> the Vatican\u2019s top sex crimes investigator to Chile to hear their accusations.<\/p>\n The disclosure of the letter has raised difficult questions for the pope.<\/p>\n Did he read the letter and decide not to tell reporters about it? Did he choose to believe Bishop Barros over Mr. Cruz? Or did he never read the letter, or perhaps read it but forget about it?<\/p>\n For Mr. Cruz, the pope has become \u201cjust like the others.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe covers up and doesn\u2019t listen to the victims,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Some veteran Vatican analysts said that perhaps the pope had information not available to other people.<\/p>\n Marco Politi, a Vatican expert and the author of the book \u201cPope Francis Among the Wolves,\u201d said the pope\u2019s continued belief in the innocence of Bishop Barros must have been based on an internal investigation. If the pope erred, Mr. Politi said, \u201cit was that he did not send Bishop Charles Scicluna earlier.\u201d Bishop Scicluna is the investigator the pope sent to Chile.<\/p>\n The case against Bishop Barros erupted in 2015 when the pope named him, a former chaplain in the Chilean armed forces, to lead the Osorno diocese amid widespread protest. Bishop Barros has denied knowing about the abuse until 2010, when accounts emerged in the news media.<\/p>\n Concerned by the accusations against the Chilean bishop, members of the Commission for the Protection of Minors traveled to Rome so that they could deliver Mr. Cruz\u2019s letter to the pope.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all felt that the Barros appointment had been a mistake, and when Juan Carlos told me he had been trying to be heard, we thought that this was an opportunity to get the details directly to the pope,\u201d said Marie Collins, a survivor of abuse who resigned from the commission<\/a> last year in frustration over its inaction. \u201cIf Barros hadn\u2019t recognized abuse when it had happened under his eyes, it was difficult to see how those in his diocese would be properly protected,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The working group issued a statement at the time saying that it was essential for a bishop to enact effective policies and monitor compliance, \u201cin the light that sexual abuse is so common,\u201d but did not mention Mr. Cruz\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n At the commission\u2019s next meeting several weeks later, Cardinal O\u2019Malley confirmed that he had delivered the letter to the pope, Ms. Collins said. Mr. Cruz said Cardinal O\u2019Malley had told him that he delivered the letter himself.<\/p>\n Last month, after the pope\u2019s remarks dismissing allegations against Bishop Barros as \u201cslander,\u201d Cardinal O\u2019Malley issued a remarkable defense of the victims.<\/p>\n Delivering the letter was the only time, as far as Ms. Collins knows, that members of the commission tried to speak to the pope about a specific case, she said. But she also said that while she is convinced that the letter was given to the pope, she cannot be sure if he read it.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no idea because he has continued to support Barros over three years, and never met with the survivors,\u201d she said. \u201cI can\u2019t judge. The pope is a good man. I have no idea why he wouldn\u2019t have considered the concerns of the members of his commission.\u201d<\/p>\n The new commission for the protection of minors \u2014 whose members have not been announced \u2014 is expected to hold its first plenary session in April.<\/p>\n Mr. Saunders, who was dismissed from the commission in 2016<\/a> for being too outspoken, was also present at the April 2015 meeting. The commission members had hoped to speak directly with the pope, but instead met with Cardinal O\u2019Malley, he recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cO\u2019Malley said the letter would be handed to Francis, who I think was literally in the next room,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n