During the closing activity of the so-called “Change of Citizen Command” in La Pintana, this Sunday President Gabriel Boric stated that in one of the activities carried out yesterday, Saturday, the Solemn Ecumenical Prayer for the people of Chile, “it bothered me to see Mr. (Ricardo) Ezzati in the Cathedral and people who have acted as a cover-up for serious crimes once morest the children who are present here.”
Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, who was Archbishop of Santiago, He was one of those present at the ceremony, which was also attended by his predecessor, Francisco Javier Errázuriz. The host was the current Archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Celestino Aós.
Ezzati and Errazuriz have been questioned in relation to how they dealt with reports of abuse committed by priests of the Catholic Church in Chile once morest minors and people under his spiritual direction, facts that provoked a direct investigation commissioned from the Vatican by Pope Francis, as well as a series of changes within the episcopate.
In fact, Ezzati has been sued by associations of victims of ecclesiastical sexual abuse, pointing to his alleged action as an accessory.
In 2019, The cardinal denied having covered up these events from his position, although he pointed out that “every day I apologize for my faults, I might have made mistakes and I apologize, if there have been mistakes they have not been cover-ups or conscious mistakes.
President Boric added in his criticism that although on Saturday he did not notice the presence of Ezzati in the Ecumenical Prayer for Chile, later when he found out he assured that “these situations cannot continue to be naturalized because boys and girls are going to be present here and in this government”.
“Boys and girls, you must feel part of what we are building and your rights can never be violated once more and their trust is abused”, sentenced the President.
“Having invited Mr. Ezzati and Mr. Errázuriz who had high responsibilities in the hierarchy of the Church at times of serious abuse once morest children and adolescents and where there was at least negligence and I would say more institutional complicity in hiding these cases is absolutely unacceptable and I want to be very clear because these things always invite you to say it with a kind of protocol, without saying the names, but I think that out of respect for the victims, it is important to state it very categorically”, said the President when consulted by the topic in interview with CHV.
“Will you formally request that they not be in the Te Deum?” Asked the journalist Macarena Pizarro, before which the ruler was blunt. “I ask you immediately,” he replied.
“People who have been responsible for covering up cases of sexual abuse cannot be part of these activities,” he said.
Regarding his new role as ruler, Boric stated at the event in La Pintana that those who make up the government have a “tremendous task and we want to rely on you (citizens) because you are the reason and meaning of why we got here”, adding that “We are part of a generation that a couple of years ago said loud and clear that they wanted to change things.”
“I do not intend in one day, in a couple of minutes, in four years to change everything that is wrong. History is much longer than us: we learn from those who came before and we are going to leave tasks to those who come following”, she stated.
And although he claimed the acts and gestures made at the beginning of his government as important rites and symbols to “rebuild trust”, Boric pointed out that he knows that “the symbolic is not enough”.
“We have to work so that, at the end of the day, our government has jointly improved the quality of life of our people,” he argued.
