The pedophile next door

Around the world the priests of the Catholic Church are being accused and found guilty of pedophilia. Chile, where the Church is very strong, is no exception. From my window I gaze onto the Church of El Bosque, one of the most upper class Catholic communities in Santiago, led until a few months ago by Priest Karadima. In 2003 Karadima was first accused of "abusing boys", yet he was removed from his post less than 6 months ago (ie., 2010). He has now been dispossessed of millions of dollars he accumulated under his name (pressumably for the Church) and a whole circle of protection around him is being uncovered. He was one of the most powerful Church leaders in Chile.

One of Karadima's victims is Jimmy Hamilton, and his case is somewhat typical of this case. Jimmy was 17 when Karadima started asking him to masturbate him. This situation lasted until Jimmy was in his 30s, married with three children. The family would go have dinner at Karadima's house (located there within the Church grounds), and at some point Karadima would say: "Hey Jimmy, come to my little office back here so I can check your heartbeat" (Karadima was trained as a doctor) and the abuse would happen, as the children ate their meat and rice outside. Finally Jimmy decided to seek a divorce from his wife through Church channels: that is, an annullment, granted by the Vatican when marriage is not freely entered into. For many decades this was the Chilean upper class' way of getting divorced because divorce was not legally possible. Jimmy argued he was not free to marry because he had been at the time a victim of abuse by Karadima!

Karadima's case has shaken the upper class to the roots. They feel their trust has been betrayed and, to protect themselves somewhat, they continue to call it a case of pedophilia rather than homosexuality. It comes on the heels of the case of the "Cura Tato", priest at an upper class girls school where he had sex with many adolescent girls and left one pregnant. He was moved around from diocese to diocese (including other countries) until a group of lower class girls denounced him. He now lives in peaceful retreat in the Swiss Alps where he asks foregivness for "this dark side within me".

Unfortunately these cases have had much more resonance than that of Marcel Maciel, founder of the Legionarios de Cristo, an ultra-conservative upper class Catholic "sect", found to have raped a 15-year old girl, fathered a child and kept the mother as a mistress in a double life he led for years, in addition to many other acts of pedophilia. The cases of sexual abuse are evidence of the Catholic Church's crisis, but so is the rise of these ultra-conservative sects - also prey to scandal though incomprehensibly with less resonance. Yesterday I came to this question: could the demise of the Catholic Church lead to the rise of these ultra-conservative sects, actually leaving us in a worse (from my point of view) position than with a strong Catholic Church?

The beautiful view from my office, one a cold day after a rainfall (snowfall in the mountains). Very atypical for November.

The red steeple of the Church El Bosque, from my office window.

Grafiti saying "Karadima Pedofilo" on a nearby sidewalk. This is very strange; this is the only grafiti that exists and Karadima's upper class victims (and their friends) are hardly the type to do grafiti. 

Karadima's playground, the city of Santiago, from a mountain-side to the East of the city. We had to cut our hike short because of the rain that came in.