Voice of the Faithful ®

Juan Carlos Cruz recalls that he and another teen boy would lie down on the priest’s bed, one resting his head at the man’s shoulder, another sitting near his feet. The priest would kiss the boys and grope them, he said, all while the Rev. Juan Barros watched.

“‘Barros was there, and he saw it all,’ Cruz, now a 51-year-old journalist, told The Associated Press.

“Barros has been tapped by Pope Francis to become bishop of a southern Chilean diocese this month, provoking an unprecedented outcry by abuse victims and Catholic faithful who contend he covered up sexual abuse committed by his mentor and superior, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, in the 1980s and ’90s. A Vatican investigation found Karadima guilty in 2011 and sentenced the now 84-year-old priest to a cloistered life of ‘penitence and prayer’ for what is Chile’s highest-profile case of abuse by a priest.”

By Eva Vergara, Associated Press, in Star Tribune — Click here to read the rest of this story.