On March 15, Constanza Alva de Urmeneta got in the car behind the hearse for the funeral procession of her 15-year-old daughter, Pía Urmeneta. Typically somber occasions, it was apparent from the second they drove off the church lot that this was instead a celebration of Pía’s life, just as she had wanted.
A Chilean bishop is urging civil disobedience after several regions of the country went into lockdown again to stop the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, imposing heavy restrictions on the celebration of religious ceremonies.
A group of indigenous peoples in southern Argentina has illegally occupied land belonging to the Diocese of San Isidro.
Demonstrators burned two Catholic churches in Chile, where gatherings to mark the one-year anniversary of mass protests against inequality descended into chaos.
Despite news reports to the contrary, a Chilean court denied Monday that it’s reached a conclusion in favor of three victims of clerical sexual abuse who are suing the Archdiocese of Santiago for covering up abuses by former priest Fernando Karadima.
Pope Francis’ silence about allegations by his former ambassador to the U.S. that he knew of abuses against seminarians by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is, for some, no more disconcerting than his silence regarding Chile, where three bishops have been subpoenaed by the prosecutor’s office to give testimony about possible abuse cover-ups.
A Chilean prosecutor last weekend announced plans to bring an “historical trial” against the Catholic Church for attempting to hide or eliminate evidence related to clerical sexual abuse, confirming what Pope Francis said in May in a letter to the country’s bishops’ conference: “We know that there were religious who destroyed evidence.”
Despite repeated attempts to distance himself from his country’s sexual abuse crisis, including recently asserting there’s a climate of “slander” against the Catholic Church, Chilean Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati of Santiago is facing mounting scrutiny for his role in the scandals both from outside the Church and within.
After an in-depth Vatican-led investigation into clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of 61-year-old Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, Chile, and two other Chilean bishops June 11.
Every bishop in Chile offered his resignation to Pope Francis after a three-day meeting at the Vatican to discuss the clerical sexual abuse scandal.
