Chileans denounce suffering sex abuse by Marists, priests

SANTIAGO, Chile – Even as Pope Francis apologized for his failures in connection with Chile’s most famous case of clerical sex abuse, the pope and that country’s deeply discredited Catholic Church are under mounting pressure to address another, even bigger sex scandal.

The blooming scandal involves the Marist Brothers, a congregation dedicated to education.

It came to light last August, when the group revealed that at least 14 minors were abused from the 1970s until 2008 by Abel Perez, a brother who worked at two of the order’s schools. Then it acknowledged that another Marist sexually abused five students.

The Marists opened a canonical investigation and launched legal action against Perez. But many Chileans were outraged when the order admitted that Perez had confessed in 2010 — seven years earlier.