The Pope accepts the resignation of the Archbishop of Santiago

Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, Archbishop of Santiago de Chileand appointed a temporary substitute to govern the most important archdiocese of the South American country after Ezzati has been involved in several scandals of badual abuse and concealment in the country.

At a conference in front of the media in Santiago, Ezzati said yesterday that he was sure that justice would determine his innocence and that he would come out "very high forehead".

"Every denunciation has been confronted and we will have to wait for what the justice says about it.It is not enough to be told that it is a concealer.You have to prove it," he said.

Without a doubt, the scandal of badual abuse "was the greatest suffering of that time," added the cardinal and one of the highest leaders of the Chilean Church.

The pope has appointed the current bishop of Copiapó, Bishop Celestino Aós Braco, Capuchin brother born in Spain, to temporarily replace Ezzati. Aós Braco will be apostolic administrator, waiting to find another person capable of filling this post.

In a statement in which he asked for prayers for his new work, Aós acknowledged the difficulties that awaited him, highlighting "the light and the darkness, the successes and the defects, the wounds and the sins" of the Church of Santiago. However, Aós also faces charges of concealment after a former seminarian accused him of wanting to delay the lawsuit many years ago.

Fireplace

Ezzati, 77, resigned two years ago, while he was reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75, but Francisco kept him in office. The prelate, however, it has become the center of the anger of the victims of abuse for mismanaging several cases.

Just on Friday The Court of Appeal of Chile has authorized prosecutors to continue their investigations into Ezzati for alleged concealment, rejecting his request for clbadification and withdrawal of the investigation, reported the Chilean media.

Ezzati denied concealing cases, but acknowledged the pain of the victims and promised to promote transparency.

Francisco himself was struck by the scandal after initially discredited the victims during his trip to Chile in 2018, which triggered a crisis of confidence in the Chilean hierarchy and in his own leaders.

After becoming aware of his mistake, the Pope summoned more than 30 active bishops from Chile to the Vatican and asked for their resignation. To date, he has accepted eight.

Chilean abuse victims have long accused Ezzati and his predecessor in Santiago, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, of protecting predatory priests and discrediting the victims.

The scandal in Chile broke out for the first time in 2010, when the victims publicly accused one of the country's most prominent preachers, the priest Fernando Karadima, of having abused them for years. Errázuriz first suspended an investigation, but the Vatican finally sentenced Karadima to an ecclesiastical court.

Karadima was expelled from the church by Pope Francis in September, as a result of another eruption of the scandal last year.

Francisco had unleashed the crisis by firmly defending one of Karadima's protégés, Juan Barros, in the face of accusations that he witnessed the abuses of Karadima and neglected them.

After realizing that something was wrong, Francisco ordered an investigation at the Vatican that revealed decades of abuse and concealment by Chilean church leaders, including Barros and Ezzati.

Point of inflection

The pollsters cited the Karadima scandal as the turning point in the gradual loss of credibility of the Chilean Church among ordinary Chileans.

Ezzati also waiting for a tax investigation on pedophilia cases admitted by the The former Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Santiago, Oscar Muñoz, has also been reported for rape.

At the same time, on Friday, the Santiago Guaranty Court unanimously rejected the request for filing of the latest case filed by the defense of Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati ", which had been questioned by the Attorney General in addition to the file of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Archdiocese of Santiago, Oscar Muñoz Toledo, for rape and badual abuse, "said the judicial branch of Chile on Twitter.

Ezzati was one of the most controversial figures of the Chilean Catholic Church and the acceptance of his resignation prompted prompt reactions.

"In Mons, Aós, I wish him the best in his administration to manage the disaster of Santiago, join the clergy and cooperate with justice, something better than Ezzati and his band, which I hope will answer in front of them. Chilean justice before escaping from the country, "tweeted Juan Carlos Cruz, one of the public victims of Karadima, the most well-known face of the pedophile of the Chilean Church and expelled by Francisco in September of l & # 39; church.

However, a former seminarian, Mauricio Pulgar, said that Aós did not allow him to present evidence or witnesses in support of his allegations of ill-treatment by the Reverend Jaime Da Fonseca, when he was arrested. he presented them for the first time in 2012.

Blanket

In an interview, Pulgar said that Aós – who had been tasked with investigating the case while he was in Valparaíso – "concealed the attackers and one of them. they were Jaime Da Fonseca, which allowed him to continue to abuse for six more years. "

Pulgar was a seminarian from the Diocese of Valparaíso and claims to have denounced the abuse suffered by at least two priests before Aós, while he was in charge of the canonical investigation.

Da Fonseca was finally expelled last year.

AP has contacted the Archdiocese of Santiago to ask him to comment on the charges against Aós in the Da Fonseca case, but has not responded yet.