・性的虐待隠蔽疑惑-チリの首都サンチャゴ大司教を教皇が”事実上更迭”

(2019.3.23 Crux 

Pope accepts resignation of Chilean cardinal who faces abuse cover-up probe

Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati of Santiago, Chile, speaks during an interfaith gathering in 2015 at the cathedral in Santiago. (Credit: CNS photo/Sebastian Silva, EPA.)

ローマ発 -教皇フランシスコが23日、首都サンチャゴ大司教のリカルド・エザッティ枢機卿から出されていた辞表を受理した。枢機卿は、聖職者による性的虐待を隠蔽したとの訴えを受け、現地の検察当局から召喚されている。

 大司教の更迭に伴い、教皇は同日、サンチャゴ大司教区の管理者として、同国北部のコピアポ教区長のチェレスティーノ・アオス・ブラコ司教を充てると発表した。

 チリでは、国内の司教全員がこの問題の責任を取って教皇に辞表を提出しており、昨年、このうち7人が辞表を受理されている。その理由は明らかにされず、今回もバチカン報道局から枢機卿の大司教辞表を教皇が受理した理由は明らかにされていない。

 だが、多くの関係者は、”定年”の75歳を超えているためだけではなく、聖職者の性的虐待とその隠蔽が大量発覚した同国カトリック教会における事実上の最高責任者としての役割が問われたもの、との見方が強い。。

 エザッティ枢機卿は、検察当局が性的虐待ないしその隠蔽に関わった疑いがある、として捜査対象としているチリの8人の司教のうちの一人。枢機卿とサンチャゴ大司教区が、聖職者がカテドラル内の寝室で強姦した事実を隠蔽した、として50万ドルの損害賠償訴訟を起こされていることが、今月初めに明らかになっている。

 大司教ポストが空白となったサンチャゴ大司教区の管理者となるアオス・ブラコ司教はスペイン人のカプチン会会員で、1983年からチリで司祭として働いている。だが、関係者がCruxに語ったところによると、バルパライソの教区司法責任者として勤務していた際、元神学生たちが司祭5人を性的虐待で訴えた案件の処理を誤ったとの申し立てをされている。Cruxの調査では、司祭たちのうち1人のみが教区の調査を3か月にわたったされたが、証拠不十分で元神学生たちの訴えが却下されている。また現在、5人のうち1人は死亡、4人は司祭職凍結ないし虐待容疑で調べを続けられている。

 虐待の被害者の一人は23日、アオス・ブラコ司教が教区管理者に選任されたことについて、「これは、教皇がなさった最悪の判断です」と批判、また、2012年に司教と話し合いをせねばならなかった際、「非人間的」な対応を受け、教皇が先に更迭したドゥアルテ元司教の隠ぺいを助けた、と非難した。

(以下、英語原文続く)

Among others, Pulgar made allegations against Father Jaime Da Fonseca. Aos Braco released a report saying that the priest was innocent and that the allegations were untrue. However, last year the Vatican removed Da Fonseca from the priesthood with no right to appeal the sentence.

“In my opinion, the pope made a terrible mistake,” Pulgar told Crux on Saturday. “There are many other really good candidates, who have not covered up. I think this is a really bad signal for victims of clerical sexual abuse, and also for all the lay movements trying to clean up the Church.”

Aos Braco, the survivor said, “is not a guarantee that the Archdiocese of Santiago will have truth, justice or reparation. I think that the pope made a terrible mistake, is mocking Chile or received terribly bad advice.”

Others, not pleased with the appointment but ecstatic to see Ezzati leave, told Crux that the bishop nevertheless “deserves a second chance.”

Although much of the attention on the Chilean crisis had been focused on Barros since 2015, who at the time was moved by Francis from the military chaplaincy to Osorno, a report commissioned by the pope found the problem goes much further.

The 2,300-page dossier, produced by Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Spanish Father Jordi Bertomeu, led the pope to shift from defending Barros in public last January to acknowledging he’d been wrong. Since that first report, which he received in April, Francis has held several meetings with Chileans, including two encounters with survivors, in addition to the one with the 34 bishops.

In a document distributed to the bishops and later leaked to Chilean media, the pope had hinted that he was going to remove people from positions of authority, “This – and I say this clearly – must be done, but it’s not enough, we must go further.”

Francis also wrote that the “special mission” of Scicluna and Bertomeu was designed to “help find the light to adequately treat an open wound, one which hurts and is complex, and which for a long time hasn’t stopped bleeding in the lives of so many people, and as such, in the life of the People of God.”

In the footnotes of the document, Francis didn’t hold back when listing the failures of the Chilean bishops, saying that his envoys confirmed that some clerics guilty of immoral behavior were transferred to other dioceses, with the gravity of their actions “minimized” and attributed to “simple weakness or lack of morality.”

That research, Francis says, also showed mishandling of the allegations, because “in not a few cases” grave indications of a crime “were superficially dismissed as improbable,” and on occasion, evidence was destroyed.

Though Chilean, Ezzati was born in Italy in 1942. At the age of 17, he emigrated to Chile to join the Salesian religious order and went on to do studies in both Chile and Europe before returning to Chile to teach theology.

In 1991, Ezzati was named an official of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, better known as the “Congregation for Religious,” which is the same Vatican department in which the previous Archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa also served. Errázuriz is also now under fire for cover-ups of abuse cases.

Both Ezzati and Errázuriz returned to Chile in 1996, Errázuriz as the Archbishop of Valparaíso and Ezzati as Bishop of Valdivia. In 2001, Ezzati became an auxiliary bishop of Santiago de Chile, and in 2006 he became the Archbishop of Concepción.

In 2009, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI appointed Ezzati to serve as one of four apostolic administrators to look into the Legion of Christ after its founder, the late Mexican Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, had been found guilty of a wide range of sexual abuse and misconduct. Following that appointment, in 2010, Ezzati was named the Archbishop of Santiago.

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2019年3月25日