2015 Letter Belies Pope’s Claim of Ignorance

The Associated Press’s Nicole Winfield and Eva Vergara report, “Pope Francis received a victim’s letter in 2015 that graphically detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how other Chilean clergy ignored it, contradicting the pope’s recent insistence that no victims had come forward to denounce the cover-up.” During Pope Francis’ trip to South America last month, he met with sexual abuse survivors but caused controversy when he dismissed accusations that Bishop Juan Barros had covered up sexual abuse scandals in Chile. Winfield and Vergara write, “The fact that Francis received the eight-page letter, obtained by the AP, challenges his insistence that he has ‘zero tolerance’ 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.”

Read at The Associated Press

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