MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pope Francis apologizes for remarks in Chile referred to Bishop Juan Barros

“I apologize to them if I hurt them without realizing it, but it was a wound that I inflicted without meaning to,” said the Pope on Monday. “It pains me very much.”

Pope Francis has apologized for remarks he made last week in Chile defending a bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse. He said he realized his words hurt many, but repeated his belief that Chilean Bishop Juan Barros was innocent. Francis was speaking to journalists on board a plane flying back to Rome.

 Last week, he had said that victims who had accused Bishop Barros were committing slander. The Pope was openly criticized by Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, who said he left victims of sexual abuse committed by priests feeling abandoned.

“I apologize to them if I hurt them without realizing it, but it was a wound that I inflicted without meaning to,” said the Pope on Monday. “It pains me very much.”

Bishop Barros has not been accused of abuse, but of being present when another priest, Fernando Karadima, molested young boys.

When questioned by a Chilean journalist on Thursday, the Argentine pontiff had said: “The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will speak. There is not a single piece of proof against him. Everything is slander. Is this clear?”

This prompted some of Karadima's victims to hold a press conference where they said it was “offensive and unacceptable to say that we need to provide concrete evidence”.

On Monday, the Pope said he regretted using the word “proof”, saying he realized that it came off as a slap in the face. “There are lots of abused people who cannot show proof. They don't have it. Or they have it but they keep it to themselves, suffering in silence,” he said.

Across Chile, a cartoon - by Chilean satirist Guillo - is now circulating through social media. It shows the Pope saying, “To believe in us you have to have faith. But if you want us to believe in you - you must bring me evidence”.

In 2010, Father Karadima was publicly accused of molesting several teenage boys in the capital, Santiago, starting in the 1980s. After the Vatican found him guilty, he was sentenced to a lifetime of “penance and prayer”.

He never faced criminal prosecution in Chile as too much time had passed, but the judge who heard victims' testimony in a year-long investigation described them as “truthful and reliable”.

The Pope has been criticized for appointing Bishop Barros as bishop of Osorno, in south-central Chile, in 2015. The consecration ceremony had to be cut short over protests in the cathedral.