VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Saturday replaced Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, the embattled archbishop of Santiago, Chile, after he became embroiled in the country’s spiraling sex abuse and cover-up scandal.
Francis accepted Ezzati’s resignation and named a temporary replacement to govern Chile’s most important archdiocese: the Spanish-born Capuchin friar and current bishop of Copiapo, Chile, Monsignor Celestino Aos Braco.
The 77-year-old Ezzati had submitted his resignation to Francis two years ago when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. But Francis kept him on, and Ezzati became the flashpoint of abuse survivors’ ire for mishandling several cases of abuse.
Francis himself became embroiled in the scandal after initially discrediting victims during his 2018 trip to Chile, sparking a crisis in confidence in the Chilean hierarchy and his own leadership.
After realizing his error and apologizing to the victims, Francis summoned all of Chile’s 30-plus active bishops to the Vatican last May and strong-armed them into offering their resignations. To date he has accepted fewer than 10 of them.
The Vatican announcement came a day after an appeals court in Chile allowed prosecutors to continue investigating Ezzati for an alleged cover-up, rejecting his motion to dismiss the case and remove himself from the probe, Chilean media reported.
Chilean abuse survivors have long accused Ezzati and his predecessor in Santiago, Cardinal Javier Errazuriz, of protecting predator priests and discrediting victims. In recent weeks, Ezzati has been embroiled in a new scandal after a man sued him for allegedly covering up his rape inside the cathedral.
The Chile scandal first erupted in 2009 when victims publicly accused one of the country’s most prominent preachers, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, of molesting them for years. Errazuriz initially shelved an investigation, only to have the Vatican eventually convict Karadima in a church tribunal.
Amid the renewed eruption of the scandal last year, Francis stiffened the penalty against Karadima and defrocked him.
Francis had sparked the crisis by strongly defending one of Karadima’s proteges, Bishop Juan Barros, against accusations that he had witnessed Karadima’s abuse and ignored it.
After realizing that something was amiss, Francis ordered a Vatican investigation that uncovered decades of abuse and cover-ups by the Chilean church leadership, Barros and Ezzati included.
Pollsters have cited the Karadima scandal as the tipping point in the Chilean church’s progressive loss of credibility among ordinary Chileans.
Ezzati has denied covering up any cases but has acknowledged the pain of victims and vowed to promote transparency.
