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VATICAN CITY.- Pope Francis accepted on Thursday the resignation of two other Chilean bishops involved in a scandal of sexual abuse reported the Vatican, bringing to five the number of resignations of high-ranking religious in the country that the pontiff admits up to now.
Bishops Alejandro Goic Karmelic of Rancagua and Horacio Valenzuela Abarca of Talca, two cities in south-central Chile, will be replaced by commissioners, called apostolic administrators, according to a statement. .
Francisco accepted the resignation of three other religious on June 11, after the previous month, 34 Chilean bishops offered in an unprecedented event to resign after attending an emergency meeting with Papa for concealing sexual abuse in Chile.
Gustavo Madrid, a layman from Talca, said that he was "grateful, relieved, hopeful" that the Pope decided to give another blow to the church Chilean
"We hope that The Pope (…) opened his eyes, finally listened to other bishops at the international level who told him" pay attention, pay attention to what is goes to Chile, "said Madrid.
Goic, 78, issued a statement last month apologizing for not acting promptly when he learned of allegations of sexual abuse by 14 priests, who were suspended after allegations of systematic abuse of children under an organization called "The Family".
The "La Familia" case is already being examined by the civil justice system in Chile to determine if some of the crimes are not prescribed.
"Slowly but surely (…) two bad and corrupt bishops less responsible of the good people, Horacio Valenzuela and Alejandro Goic at home," said Juan Carlos Cruz, victim of one of the cases, on his Twitter account of the most iconic abuses.
The legacy of Karadima
Valenzuela, 64, was one of four bishops trained for the priesthood decades ago by Fernando Karadima, the most famous abuser of Chile .
Karadima was found guilty in a Vatican investigation in 2011 of abusing children in Santiago in the 1970s and 1980s. The influential priest, who is detained in a retirement home in Chile always denied any inappropriate conduct.
Francisco told Reuters in an exclusive interview at his residence on June 17 that he was considering accepting the resignation of more Chilean bishops.
One of the bishops Juan Barros, of the southern town of Osorno, became the center of investigation and is one of the prelates whose resignation Papa had already accepted.
The victims say that Barros witnessed sexual abuse and covered them in Santiago, where Karadima had gained a cult status among politically conservative Catholics in a wealthy area of the capital. Barros denied the accusations.
"The families took their children to Karadima because they believed the doctrine was sound and did not know what was going on there," the pope told Reuters.
In the interview, Francisco described Karadima as "a seriously disturbed person".
The scandal intensifies after the Argentine pontiff visited the Chile in January and then sent an investigator to the South American country, the Archbishop of Malta, Bishop Charles Scicluna.
Scicluna produced a 2,300-page report accusing the Chilean bishops of "gross negligence" for investigating allegations of child abuse and stated that evidence of sexual crimes had been destroyed.
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