The Pope accepts the resignation of two Chilean bishops

Vatican City .- Pope Francis yesterday accepted the resignations of two other Chilean bishops in a further repercussion of the scandal of sexual abuse of minors that affects the Catholic Church.

Chilean prelates in activity have resigned for failing to protect the children of pedophile priests. The Vatican informed that Francisco has accepted the resignations of the bishops of Rancagua, Alejandro Goic Karmelic, and Talca, Horacio del Carmen Valenzuela Abarca. With these, five resignations accepted.

Recently, the Pontiff argued that the Church in Chile has lived for decades "a culture of abuse and concealment."

In the diocese of Rancagua, 14 priests are accused of having sexual relations with minors Bishop Goic had chaired the commission for the protection of minors in the Chilean Church. The priests have been denounced for alleged sexual crimes consumed in a network called "La familia" for at least a decade.

Elisa Fernández, an informer for abuses committed in the diocese of Rancagua, 80 kilometers south of Santiago, reacted angrily to the acceptance of the resignation of Goic, who resigned three years ago to the Age 75, the age at which religious had to resign

"I am disappointed and disappointed, angry," he said. The papal documents sent by Francisco to Chile in February demanded that the Goic not be removed so that he "assumes his responsibility as an accessory in the Rancagua case."

He adds that "here the thread wants to be cut by the slimmest, but the bishops who are the main concealers … will pass without pain or glory."

One of the previously accepted resignations was that of the 39, Bishop of Osorno, Juan Barros, who was a close associate of Fernando Karasima, Chile's best-known pedophile priest. Francisco had vigorously defended Barros despite the indignation of many faithful and some ecclesiastical leaders, who maintained that he had concealed the abuses of Karadima, condemned in 2011 by the Vatican to a "life of prayer and penance" After local justice The charges of sexual abuse were declared prescribed.

In April, the Pope received three victims of Karadima to whom he apologized. Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman for the laity of Osorno, affirmed that the pope "has the responsibility to withdraw more bishops" and called on the Vatican to give access to the 2300-page report of the investigators on the sexual abuse after visiting Chile in February