Karadima case

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The case of Fernando Karadima concerned the sexual abuse of minors in Chile, which became public in 2010. It raised questions about the responsibility and complicity of several Chilean bishops, including some of the country's highest-ranking Catholic prelates. By 2018, it attracted worldwide attention.

Fernando Karadima (6 August 1930 – 26 July 2021^[1][2]), a Chilean Catholic priest, was accused as early as 1984 of sexually abusing adolescent boys. Years later, when a church investigator found the accusers credible, his superior, the Archbishop of Santiago de Chile, took no action against him. Karadima's accusers made their charges public in 2010. The Chilean Catholic Church completed a thorough investigation of the charges that year, and in February 2011 the Vatican found Karadima guilty of sexually abusing minors and psychological abuse. It forced him into retirement, relocated him away from contact with former parishioners and followers, and denied him the right to function as a priest for the rest of his life. Civil legal action against him was thwarted by the statute of limitations.

Karadima had been influential in the spiritual formation and careers of dozens of priests and several bishops. Karadima's accusers charged those bishops and other high-ranking prelates had failed to investigate their claims of sexual abuse and had endangered the minors in their care. When the Vatican found Karadima guilty, one of the bishops associated with him, Andrés Arteaga [es], resigned from his position as Vice-Chancellor of the Universidad Católica de Chile. Two others remained as heads of their dioceses, positions they had held since 1996 in one case and 2003 in the other. In 2015, the attempt to install the fourth, Juan Barros Madrid, as Bishop of Osorno, became a multi-year battle, first confined to Chile, but eventually drawing the attention of the Vatican and worldwide media coverage.