• 12th June 2018 – Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna and Mgr Jordi Bertomeu arrive at the airport of Santiago in Chile to fulfill the mission entrusted by Pope Francis in Santiago and Osorno. 

     

  • 12th June 2018 – Archbishop Scicluna speaks during a press conference in Santiago. He said that his team’s pastoral mission includes providing “concrete technical and legal assistance to the dioceses in Chile so they may give adequate responses to each case of sexual abuse of minors committed by clergy or religious”. The Archbishop emphasised that “child abuse is not just a canonical crime, it is a civil offence”.

     

  • 13th June 2018 – Archbishop Scicluna surrounded by university students demanding the Catholic Church to investigate cases sexual abuses inside the Catholic University of Chile, after addressing a press conference at that same university in Santiago.

     

  • 14th June 2018 – The papal envoys arrive in the city of Osorno where they held a series of pastoral meetings, moments of prayer and liturgical celebrations with various communities of the diocese.

     

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  • 14th June 2018 – Archbishop Scicluna and Mgr Jordi Bertomeu meet around 70 members of the group Faithful Catholics of Osorno at the cathedral of San Mateo. Later they prayed with the Laicos de Osorno group at Santa Rosa parish, where they were greeted with applause.

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  • 15th June 2018 – Archbishop Scicluna and Mgr Bertomeu initiate key meetings in Osorno with more than 40 priests and deacons. Referring to the 14 allegations of alleged sexual abuse committed in the diocese and seminars in Osorno, Archbishop Scicluna stated that “investigating is a duty of justice”.

     

  • 16th June 2018 – Archbishop Scicluna attends a meeting with priests and nuns at the San Mateo Cathedral where several people gave their testimony regarding the crisis that exists between the faithful and the clergy of the city. It was his second activity on the third day of the visit of the papal mission in Osorno.

    On the day, Archbishop Scicluna received relatives of Ricardo Harex, a student at the Salesian San José lyceum (of which the late Salesian priest Rimsky Rojas was director and accused of abuse), who disappeared in Punta Arenas when he was 17 years old, after participating in a party with his friends.

     

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  • 17th June 2018 – During the so-called “Mass of Reconciliation”, held at the San Mateo Cathedral in Osorno, on his knees, Archbishop Scicluna said that “the Pope has asked me to apologise to all the faithful of Osorno and all the inhabitants of the territory for having hurt and deeply offended”. 

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  • 17th June 2018 – In a declaration closing his pastoral mission in Osorno, Archbishop Charles Scicluna thanked the people of Osorno for the wonderful welcome and affirmed that true reconciliation is not achieved with a mission of a few days, “but it is a gift of God that must be accompanied by a long process, which requires patience, generosity, strength and humility”.

    Archbishop Charles Scicluna will return to Malta on Wednesday 20th June.

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