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The Pope's Turnaround on Sex Abuse May Have a ‘Tsunami Effect’

Francis is trying to fix a series of “grave errors” in Chile, and allegedly affirmed the gay identity of a victim there.
Source: Yara Nardi / Reuters

The Vatican is working through an extraordinary series of events related to child sex abuse. Last month, Pope Francis apologized for “grave errors” in the way the Catholic Church handled sex-abuse cases in Chile, where a bishop, Juan Barros Madrid, was accused of covering up the crimes of another priest, Fernando Karadima. On Friday, following an emergency meeting in Rome with the pope, all 34 Chilean bishops offered their resignation over their handling of the allegations, an apparently unprecedented move.

Then, on Monday, that Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean sex-abuse survivor, had spoken with Pope

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