Calling protesters in Chile ‘dumb,’ Pope Francis sets off uproar

Many watched in disbelief: There he was, Pope Francis, calling people in Osorno, a city in southern Chile, “dumb” for protesting against a bishop accused of being complicit in clerical sexual abuse.

“The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” Francis told a group of tourists on St. Peter’s Square, because it “has let its head be filled with what politicians say, judging a bishop without any proof.”

”Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this,” the pope said.

The video, recorded by an Argentine tourist in May, was obtained by a Chilean television station and broadcast Friday, quickly instilling doubts here about the pope’s commitment to protecting victims of sexual abuse.

Under a heavy rain, demonstrators with black balloons chanted again outside the San Mateo Cathedral in Osorno on Sunday as the bishop at the center of the controversy, Juan Barros, celebrated Mass.

Barros was appointed by the pope to head the Diocese of Osorno this year, despite reports that he had covered up sexual abuses committed by the Rev. Fernando Karadima, a prominent priest in Santiago, the capital.

Barros spent more than 30 years alongside Karadima, who was found guilty of sexual abuses by the Vatican in 2011 and ordered to a life of seclusion, prayer and penitence. According to some of Karadima’s victims, Barros was witness to and complicit in the abuses.

Hundreds of demonstrators interrupted Barros’ installation ceremony in March, blocking his passage and shouting, “Barros, get out of the city!” The protests have not stopped since, but this time the anger has turned to the pope.

“The pope’s comments aggravated our discontent,” said Juan Carlos Claret, a spokesman for Osorno’s lay organization, which has been holding protests and candlelight vigils against Barros for months.

“It is the Church of Osorno that is demonstrating; we are not taking orders from political parties,” Claret said. “We are now seeing the real face of Pope Francis, and we demand an explanation.”

In the video, Francis asserted that the accusations against Barros were unfounded and that a Chilean court had dismissed such claims. However, a judicial investigation into the presumed negligence and cover-up of church officials regarding Karadima’s abuses is in progress.

Three of Karadima’s victims sued the Roman Catholic Church in 2012, demanding nearly $660,000 in compensation after a criminal investigation into abuses committed from 1980 to 1995 was dismissed in 2011 because the statute of limitations had expired.

One of the victims, Juan Carlos Cruz, contends that Barros was frequently present in Karadima’s bedroom when he and others were abused; threatened seminarians who dared denounce them; and destroyed letters reporting the abuses to the archbishop of Santiago at the time, Juan Francisco Fresno, when Barros was the archbishop’s personal secretary in the 1980s.

Barros is one of two dozen witnesses the plaintiffs have requested be interrogated as part of the lawsuit.

“The pope’s statements are not surprising, but it is sad,” Cruz said. “The vision of a pope closer to abuse victims has been unmasked.”

Vatican officials declined to comment.

Francis’ remarks came on the heels of another revelation related to the Karadima case. Last month, leaked emails between the archbishop-emeritus of Santiago, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, and the archbishop, Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, revealed that they had blocked Cruz from being appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, created by Francis in March 2014.

“I hope that doesn’t happen,” Ezzati wrote in June 2014, referring to Cruz’s appointment. “That would be very serious for the Chilean church. It would mean, among other things, giving credit to and endorsing what Mr. Cruz has astutely construed.”

”I hope you can shed light to those in charge of this appointment,” the cardinal continued, according to the emails, which were obtained by the news site El Mostrador.

Errázuriz responded that evening: “Tomorrow Monday, first thing in the morning, I will be at the office of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to impede the evil you write about. If he doesn’t accept it, I will speak with the Holy Father.”

In an email a year earlier, in April 2013, Ezzati wrote Errázuriz seeking advice on how to “intervene in Rome” to impede Cruz from attending an international conference to deliver his testimony.

The next day, Errázuriz provided several solutions and ended his email with, “The Serpent will not prevail!”

In 2013, the pope appointed Errázuriz to a nine-member advisory Council of Cardinals on the governance of the church.

Last week, Muñoz interrogated Errázuriz for five hours in the presence of two of Karadima’s victims, Juan Hamilton and José Murillo. The cardinal admitted to blocking Cruz from the papal commission and said that he had not believed the victim’s accusations because Karadima had the reputation of a saint, according to a court statement.

This story was originally published October 7, 2015 at 9:05 PM with the headline "Calling protesters in Chile ‘dumb,’ Pope Francis sets off uproar."