“As a Church, we are facing a painful moment, because we are confident that we are directly or indirectly involved in the deep suffering of innocent victims,” the Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Bolivia said in a statement. expression was used.
In the statement, which stated that the child abuse scandal involving the church shook the country, it was accepted that the victims of sexual abuse were “deafened”.
“We know there is no way to redress the damage done. But we are committed to doing everything we can to heal the victims, including enlisting the support of professionals and paying compensation,” the statement said. statement was included.
In the statement, it was stated that two commissions would be established to determine those responsible, and it was emphasized that justice would be helped by contributing to the transparency of the investigation.
Bolivian President Luis Arce sent a letter to Pope Francis, the spiritual leader of Catholics and President of the Vatican, earlier this week, asking the Church to publish all documents related to the sexual abuses of priests in Bolivia.
In the letter, Arce urged church officials “to move from statements to concrete actions to avoid impunity.”
After that, Jordi Bertemeu, one of the Vatican’s inspectors, came to Bolivia.
The prosecutor’s office launched a confidential investigation into the incident and invited the victims to testify. As a result of this investigation, new cases of sexual abuse were uncovered and a priest was put on trial at the beginning of May.
The bishops’ announcement was made following the conclusion of a lawsuit involving Alfonso Pedrajas, a now deceased Spanish Jesuit priest. Pedrajas, who died of cancer in 2009, allegedly abused dozens of children in Catholic boarding schools in Bolivia in the 1970s and 1980s, according to a special diary accessed by the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
The Jesuit Society in Bolivia had earlier pledged to support the investigation by apologizing to the victims, and accusing Pedrajas’ superiors, many of whom were deceased, of covering up the crime.
Catholic Church failed in child abuse
The reputation of the Catholic Church was shaken by its stance on child abuse accusations involving priests in many parts of the world.
Pope Pope Francis said that there were 2,000 ongoing sexual harassment cases against priests in the Vatican in 2018, and that the process was slow.
It was revealed that tens of thousands of child abuse cases were experienced in the Catholic world from Chile to Australia, while the Vatican expressed “shame and sadness” over the crimes committed.