2023-06-16 15:28:00
June 16, 2023 / 8:28 a.m.
Pope Francis has sent a letter to the Bolivian president expressing “feelings of shame and dismay” and a firm promise to work with the government of the South American country to end clerical sexual abuse of minors.
The letter, signed May 31 and addressed to the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, is a response to another letter sent to the Pontiff on May 22 by the South American president. The Pope’s letter was made public on May 15 through the official Twitter account of the Bolivian president.
“Dear Mr. President: I have read your letter and I thank you for the clarity and deference with which you share the concern, indignation and rejection, yours and the citizens of that beloved Nation, due to the deplorable events that have affected and continue to affect to people sexually abused by members of the Church”, indicates the Pope at the beginning of his message.
Then, he expressed all his pain: “In the face of the tangle of evil caused by those who, betraying their mission as parents, pastors and educators —and who, as you express—, committed ‘crimes that harm boys and girls for life, and that they also harm the Church’, I express my pain and my feelings of shame and dismay”.
In April 2023, a scandal rocked the Church in Bolivia when a report in the newspaper El País pointed to the late Jesuit Alfonso Pedrajas Moreno as the perpetrator of several abuses against minors during his ministry. This revelation led to the exposure of several cases of abuse in the Society of Jesus and in other religious congregations.
At another point in the letter, the Pope reveals that he was “moved and impressed” when thinking “of the disastrous actions of those priests and also of the negligence of those who should have watched.”
In this sense, he recalls that the “ministers of the Church must be ‘custodians’ and guarantors of the good and future of the young generations, and stand out for propagating the attitudes and sentiments that have characterized the presence of Jesus among men.”
“This problem continues to be one of the greatest challenges for the Church of our time”, argues the Pope.
The Holy Father also expressed to President Arce his “firm desire to respond with the promise of the total availability of the Church to work together with the Government of his country.”
“I ask the Lord to help us to generously fulfill our duty to repair injustices and to always be faithful to the task of protecting those who are Jesus’ favorites,” he concludes.
For his part, President Arce thanked in Twitter the Pontiff’s response, “in which he shares our great concern, indignation and rejection of the cases of pedophilia” in the country.
In addition, the head of state insists on the need to “strengthen control to prevent foreign priests with a history of sexual crimes from entering the country.”
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