Chile: Child abuse priest removed by the Vatican

Fernando Karadima

Pope Francis has defrocked a Chilean priest who was at the centre of the global sex abuse scandal. A statement issued by the Vatican on Friday said Fernando Karadima, 88, was "reduced to the lay state" by the pope, a move it called "exceptional" and done "for the good of the Church".

Karadima sexually abused teenage boys over many years and now lives in a home for the elderly in the Chilean capital, Santiago. He was found guilty in a Vatican investigation in 2011 and ordered to live a life of "prayer and penitence", but was not defrocked at the time, the final years of the reign of former Pope Benedict. Karadima, who has always denied any wrongdoing, escaped civilian justice because of the statute of limitations in the country.

Seven Chilean bishops have resigned since June after an investigation into an alleged cover-up of Karadima's crimes, some of them former proteges of Karadima, who prepared them for the priesthood as young men. Three Chilean men who said they were abused by Karadima accused one, Juan Barros, the former bishop of Osorno, of having witnessed the abuse.

During a trip to Chile in January, the pope said he had no proof against Barros, believed he was innocent, and that accusations against him were "slander" until proven otherwise. But days after returning to Rome, the pope, citing new information, sent sexual abuse investigator Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta to Chile to speak to victims, witnesses and other Church members. Scicluna produced a 2,300-page report, accusing Chile's bishops of "grave negligence" in investigating the allegations and said evidence of sex crimes had been destroyed. In June, the Pope accepted the resignations of three Chilean bishops in the wake of the scandal. They included Juan Barros.

In April, Pope Francis, who is also grappling with sexual abuse crises in the United States, Germany and Australia, held meetings in Rome with three victims - Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton and Jose Andres Murillo. "I have a knot in my stomach. I never thought I would see this day," Cruz said in a tweet, thanking the pope. "Karadima is a criminal who has ruined so many people's lives with his abuse. I hope thousands of survivors feel a bit of the relief I feel today."

Following the meeting with the victims, Francis summoned all of Chile's 34 bishops to Rome in May and they offered their resignations en masse. Francis has so far accepted seven, and appointed "apostolic administrators" to run their dioceses.

About 80 Roman Catholic priests have been reported to authorities in Chile for alleged sexual abuse over the past 18 years.