Home United States USA — mix Chilean sexual abuse victim testifies before Vatican investigator

Chilean sexual abuse victim testifies before Vatican investigator

288
0
SHARE

The key witness in the case of a bishop accused of covering sexual abuse said on Saturday he gave an “eye-opening” testimony.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The key witness in the case of a Chilean bishop accused of covering sexual abuse said on Saturday he gave “eye opening” testimony to a papally mandated investigator and hoped it would lead to the truth.
Juan Carlos Cruz met in a church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for about four hours with Archbishop Charles Scicluna, one of the most experienced and respected Vatican investigators of clergy sexual abuse.
“It’s been a good experience and I leave here very hopeful today,” he told reporters afterwards. “I feel that I was heard … it was very intense and very detailed and very, sometimes, eye-opening for them.”
“Hopefully it will lead to good things,” he said.
The Vatican announced on Jan. 30 that Pope Francis had appointed Scicluna to look into accusations that Bishop Juan Barros of the diocese of Osorno in Chile had covered up crimes against minors.
RELATED: Inside the Vatican
21 PHOTOS
See the Parts of the Vatican Off-Limits to Tourists
See Gallery
See the Parts of the Vatican Off-Limits to Tourists
The next pope will prepare to engage the masses in his private office above St. Peter’s Square.
The cardinals sleep and eat at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, a residence in Vatican City, during the conclave process.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Each day, they walk from the Domus Sanctae Marthae to the Sistine Chapel, where voting is conducted. Wikimedia Commons
The Council for the Proclamation of Saints decides who is canonized in this off-limits conference room.
The pope and his assistants will prepare letters and official documents in the study of the Papal Apartments.
The pope entertains guests in a private dining room, where the food is “simple, but good.”
Pope Benedict occasionally played piano in the private papal living room.
The Swiss Guard, the world’s smallest standing army, stocks its gear under the streets of Vatican City.
The garments that the guards wear under their 8-pound uniforms are made from scratch in the tailoring room.
The Papal Sacristy (the pope’s walk-in closet) holds treasures handed down from previous popes.
Three restoration laboratories for marble, tapestries and paintings sit beneath the Vatican’s museums and galleries.
Tapestries are rehabilitated in this immaculate white room.
This two-story underground bunker houses the secret archives.
The archives comprise over 50 miles of shelves that include invaluable artifacts, such as a note written by Michelangelo dated January 1550.
In a room near the secret archives, one man restores the thousands of wax seals from letters sent to the Vatican over the centuries.
The Vatican Printing Press, which was founded in 1626, handles over 5,000 orders per year printed in at least 15 languages.
The Vatican radio station broadcasts in 40 different languages (and costs $25 million per year to run).
The body of Pope John Paul II lies in the grottoes below St. Peter’s Basilica.
Also under St. Peter’s basilica is the supposed tomb of St. Peter (i.e. the first pope).
The Room of Tears is where the new Pope will put on his white papal vestment for the first time.
Up Next
See Gallery
Discover More Like This
HIDE CAPTION
SHOW CAPTION
of
SEE ALL
BACK TO SLIDE
It was a dramatic U-turn for the pope, who eight days earlier told reporters aboard his plane returning from Latin America he was sure Barros was innocent and that the Vatican had received no concrete evidence against him.
“For the first time I feel that someone is listening,” said Cruz, who now lives in Philadelphia and works for a large-multinational company in nearby Delaware.
“We’ll see what the outcome is of all this, but I feel that Monsignor Scicluna is a very good man, and I think he was sincerely moved by what I was saying. He cried,” Cruz said.
“He was hearing my testimony, and I was telling him about the abuse, about the cover up [and] the way survivors, not just me, are treated … the personal toll it takes on someone. He was crying… it wasn’t an act… I felt that he was concerned and that he was listening,” Cruz said.
Scicluna declined to comment on the details of the testimony.
EMOTIONALLY DRAINED
As a teenager, Cruz was sexually abused by the Rev. Fernando Karadima, who was found guilty in a Vatican investigation in 2011 of abusing him and other teenage boys over many years. Karadima always denied the allegations.
The Vatican ordered him to follow a life of prayer and penitence and banned him from public ministry, but he avoided criminal prosecution because under Chilean law too much time had elapsed since the offences. The 87-year-old still lives in Chile.
Cruz says Barros witnessed the abuse by Karadima, who was Barros’ mentor years ago in a Santiago parish. Barros has always denied this and said he was unaware of any wrongdoing by Karadima, who had trained him to become a priest.
The Karadima case has gripped Chile for years and many Chileans protested the pope’s decision to make Barros a bishop in 2015. It cast a long shadow over the pope’s trip to Chile last month.
Scicluna will travel to Chile on Tuesday to continue his investigation of Barros there.
Cruz said he was “emotionally drained” but felt empathy from Scicluna and another priest from the Vatican’s doctrinal office in Rome who also took part in the meeting.
During his visit to Chile last month, the pope testily told a Chilean reporter: “The day I see proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk. There is not a single piece of evidence against him. It is all slander. Is that clear?”
He later apologized to victims, acknowledging that his choice of words and tone of voice had “wounded many.”
Cruz said all victims deserved to be heard with the same respect and treatment he received from Scicluna.
“The pope needs to understand that is what survivors need. Cases don’t have to come to the media for them to pay attention,” he said.
RELATED: Viral Pope moments
27 PHOTOS
Best Pope Francis photos & moments
See Gallery
Best Pope Francis photos & moments
TOPSHOT – Pope Francis laughs as he greets people during his weekly general audience at the Paul VI audience Hall on December 7,2016 in Vatican. / AFP / VINCENZO PINTO (Photo credit should read VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images)
VATICAN CITY, VATICAN – OCTOBER 26: Pope Francis attends his general weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on October 26,2016 in Vatican City, Vatican. (Photo by Alessandra Benedetti – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
TOPSHOT – Pope Francis wears a traditional Mexican sombrero hat received as a gift by a Mexican journalist on February 12,2016, aboard the plane to Havana.
Pope Francis headed to Cuba on Friday looking to heal a 1,000-year-old rift in Christianity before embarking on a tour of Mexico dominated by modern day problems of drug-related violence and migration. / AFP / POOL / ALESSANDRO DI MEO (Photo credit should read ALESSANDRO DI MEO/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 23: U. S. President Barack Obama (R) and Pope Francis (L) walk through the colonnade prior to an Oval Office meeting at the White House on September 23,2015 in Washington, DC. The Pope begins his first trip to the United States at the White House followed by a visit to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, and will then hold a Mass on the grounds of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) (Photo by Alex Wong/WHITE HOUSE POOL (ISP POOL IMAGES)/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
Pope Francis gestures to his watch to apologize for not being able to greet everyone at the end of a midday prayer with US bishops at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, DC, on September 23,2015 on the second day of his six-day visit to the US. AFP PHOTO/NICHOLAS KAMM (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
VATICAN CITY, VATICAN – NOVEMBER 26: Pope Francis attends his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square on November 26,2014 in Vatican City, Vatican. During today’s General Audience Pope Francis told pilgrims the Church is on a continuing journey towards heaven. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
VATICAN CITY, VATICAN – JUNE 25: Pope Francis holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square on June 25,2014 in Vatican City, Vatican. This will be the last Pope’s weekly audience before the suspension of the event for the summer. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
Pope Francis matle blown by the wind covers his face as he leads the weekly general audience at St Peter’s square on August 27,2014 in Vatican City.

Continue reading...