Bishop Ojea, on the abuse in the Church: "It is necessary to recognize our sins"

While he was in Rome, Pope Francis banned Vatican number three, George Pell, from approaching the Nenes after being convicted of rape, in Argentina, the church said that she was committed to eradicating "abuse situations within the institution" and going through a path of purification. "

This is what was said on Monday the president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference (CEA), Bishop Oscar Ojea. "It is necessary to carry out a thorough examination of conscience and recognize our sins", he said during his opening homily at the 117th Plenary Assembly of the Argentine Episcopate, which brings together bishops from all over the country to Pilar.

In the House of Exercises "The Cenacle", Ojea shared with his colleagues the experience of his recent participation in a meeting with Pope Francis during which the presidents of the Bishops' Conferences of the world badyzed with the Holy Father the problem of abuses that shake the church.

"The holiness of which the book of Leviticus speaks is concretized and visible in the love of the brothers, especially the most vulnerable: hungry, sad, sick, prisoners … the brothers and sisters of the existential peripheries to which we are called to take special precautions, many of them, small and small, who should have been cared for and protected, They have been cruelly abused in situations of abuse within the Churchthat today we are committed to eradicating, "he said.

In a homily of Lent concelebrated by Monsignor Marcelo Colombo, Archbishop of Mendoza, and Mgr Mario Poli, Archbishop of Buenos Aires and Cardinal Primate of Argentina, Ojea added that the word of the Gospel "reaches us at a when the Church is determined to walk on a path of purification ".

"The meeting on the protection of minors in the Church (shared with the pope) put us before the sin and the drama of the abuses, the badual abuses which are also abuses of conscience and which always start from an abuse of power", he remarked and added:" The Holy Father and the whole Church have urged us to give a radical solution to these situations. "

"Do not conceal a complaint that deserves an investigation to protect minors and vulnerable adults." It's important, essential and urgent, but that's not enough. We are called to go beyond"he insisted.

In this regard, he said: "We must renew the roots of the lifestyles and training structures that have allowed some clerics to create a sense of superiority and domination over the faithful and the faithful. to have facilitated their lives as they did not have to give account of anyone's actions, in a situation of true impunity ".

"We must be very careful so that these conditions are not created among us, which are clearly favored by a clericalism that likes privileged situations and by the lack of a genuine austerity of life and transparency", did he declare. and make sure that the authority feels like a situation of abuse. "

Finally, he considered that "the abuse of power in the broad sense, as well as the aforementioned badual abuse, contributed to create an attitude of rage and anger among many faithful, which, according to the Holy Father, is the Expression of God's wrath. "