WelCom June/July 2022
After a prominent Jesuit priest was accused of sexually abusing a girl, Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced he is contemplating opening a nationwide investigation into the Catholic Church. Fr Felipe Berríos was accused by a woman who said he abused her starting in 1998 when she was 12 until 2003 when she was 17.
According to a statement from the Jesuits, the complaint was received on April 29 and Berríos was quickly removed from public ministry. In a report released in May 2021, Chile’s Jesuits acknowledged that 64 people were victims of sexual abuse – 34 of them during their childhood or adolescence – by 11 of its clerics who were investigated by the Catholic order between 2005 and 2020.