Victims Sue Chilean Archbishop over Sexual Abuse by Ex-priest

Another small beginning in getting institutions to take responsibility for the indecencies committed by their personnel, in the hope that the policy of silence will become too expensive to keep.

From SantiagoTimes.cl

The three victims of sexual abuse by ex-priest Fernando Karadima have filed a civil suit against the Archbishop of Santiago, calling for the Church to assume responsibility.

The three men who were sexually abused between 1955 and 1980 by Fernando Karadima of the El Bosque Parish in Las Condes, Santiago, have filed a suit against Archbishop of Santiago Ricardo Ezzati demanding economic compensation for the crimes committed against them.

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      Catedral de Santiago. Photo by Carlos Eduardo Rodríguez / Flickr

The men in question are Dr. James Hamilton, journalist Juan Carlos Cruz and philosopher José Andrés Murillo and are represented by lawyer Juan Pablo Hermosilla. They say that the suit is directed towards the archbishop in an attempt to make the Church assume responsibility as an institution that acted negligently during the cases that were brought forward against Karadima.

“We’re trying to break the cornerstone of sexual abuse — silence — and this is done through what we are doing now,” José Murillo told Radio Universidad de Chile. "Every time there is abuse there is damage done, and if the abuse was committed by someone who belongs to an institution ... there is an institutional responsibility, and we want this to be established.”

The three victims claim that initial reports of abuse were dismissed by the Church, with the case finally being opened in 2004 when some of El Bosque’s parishioners and ex-priests presented a formal accusation against Karadima.