NATION/WORLD
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 7A
AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano
AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, Pool
AP Photo/Dragomir Yankovic/Aton Chile
A man is arrested during a protest against Pope Francis
in Santiago, Chile, Tuesday.
Pope Francis greets the child of an inmate at the San
Joaquin women’s prison in Santiago, Chile, Tuesday.
People search through the charred remains of the San-
ta Juana Catholic chapel in Cunco, Chile, Tuesday.
Pope meets with abuse survivors in Chile
SANTIAGO,
Chile
(AP) — Pope Francis met
on Tuesday with survivors of
priests who sexually abused
them, wept with them and
apologized for the “irreparable
damage” they suffered, his
spokesman said.
The pontiff also acknowl-
edged the “pain” of priests who
have been held collectively
responsible for the crimes of a
few, Vatican spokesman Greg
Burke told reporters at the end
of the day.
Francis dove head-first
into Chile’s sex abuse
scandal on his first full day
in Santiago that came amid
unprecedented
opposition
to his visit: Three more
churches were torched over-
night, including one burned
to the ground in the southern
Araucania region where
Francis celebrates Mass on
Wednesday. Police used tear
gas and water cannons to
break up an anti-pope protest
outside Francis’ big open-air
Mass in the capital, Santiago.
Despite the incidents, huge
numbers of Chileans turned
out to see the pope, including
an estimated 400,000 for his
Mass, and he brought some
inmates to tears with an
emotional visit to a women’s
prison.
But his meeting with abuse
survivors and comments in his
first speech of the day were
what many Chileans, incensed
by years of abuse scandal and
cover-up, were waiting for.
Burke said Francis met
with a small group of abuse
victims after lunch, listening
to their stories and praying
with them. The spokesman
gave no details, other than to
say the pope “listened to them,
prayed with them and wept
with them.”
Earlier in the day,
AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino
Pope Francis arrives on his pope-mobile to celebrate Mass at O’Higgins Park in Santiago, Chile, Tuesday. Francis begged for forgiveness Tues-
day for the “irreparable damage” done to children who were raped and molested by priests, opening his visit to Chile by diving head-first into
a scandal that has greatly hurt the Catholic Church’s credibility here and cast a cloud over his visit.
Francis told Chilean Pres-
ident Michelle Bachelet,
lawmakers, judges and
other authorities that he felt
“bound to express my pain
and shame” that some of
Chile’s clergy had sexually
abused children in their
care.
“I am one with my brother
bishops, for it is right to ask
forgiveness and make every
effort to support the victims,
even as we commit ourselves
to ensuring that such things do
not happen again,” the pope
said.
Francis did not refer by
name to Chile’s most noto-
rious pedophile priest, the Rev.
Fernando Karadima, who in
2011 was barred from all
pastoral duties and sanctioned
by the Vatican to a lifetime
of “penance and prayer” for
sexually molesting minors.
Nor did he refer to the fact that
the emeritus archbishop of
Santiago, a top papal adviser,
has acknowledged he knew of
complaints against Karadima
but didn’t remove him from
ministry.
Karadima had been a
politically connected, char-
ismatic and powerful priest
who ministered to a wealthy
Santiago community and
produced dozens of priestly
vocations and five bishops.
Victims went public with
their accusations in 2010
after complaining for years
to church authorities that
Karadima had kissed and
fondled them when they were
teenagers.
While
the
cover-up
continued to roil the church,
many Chileans are still
furious over Francis’ subse-
quent decision in 2015 to
appoint a Karadima protege
as bishop of the southern
city of Osorno. Bishop Juan
Barros has denied knowing
about Karadima’s abuse but
many Chileans don’t believe
him, and his appointment has
badly split the diocese.
BRIEFLY
Navy filing homicide charges
against two ship commanders
WASHINGTON (AP) — Five officers
involved in two Navy ship collisions last
year that killed a total of 17 sailors are being
charged with negligent homicide, the Navy
said Tuesday.
A Navy spokesman, Capt. Greg Hicks,
said the charges, which also include
dereliction of duty and endangering a ship,
will be presented to what the military calls an
Article 32 hearing to determine whether the
accused are taken to trial in a court-martial.
The disciplinary actions were decided by
Adm. Frank Caldwell and are the latest in
a series of moves the Navy has made in the
aftermath of the deadly collisions, which
investigators concluded were avoidable.
It fired several top leaders, including the
commander of the 7th Fleet, Vice Adm.
Joseph Aucoin, and several other senior
commanders in the Pacific.
The Navy has been reeling from tough
questions arising from the two collisions.
The destroyer USS Fitzgerald struck a
commercial ship off the waters of Japan
in June, killing seven U.S. sailors. The
destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with
an oil tanker in coastal waters off Singapore
in August, killing 10 U.S. sailors.
U.S. withholds $65M from
Palestinian aid programs
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump
administration on Tuesday cut tens of
millions of dollars in money for Palestinian
refugees, demanding that the U.N. agency
responsible for the programs undertake a
“fundamental re-examination,” the State
Department said.
In a letter, the State Department notified
the U.N. Relief and Works Agency that
the U.S. is withholding $65 million of a
planned $125 million funding installment.
The letter also makes clear that additional
U.S. donations will be contingent on major
changes by UNRWA, which has been
heavily criticized by Israel.
“We would like to see some reforms be
made,” said State Department spokeswoman
Heather Nauert, adding that changes are
needed to the way the agency operates and
is funded. “This is not aimed at punishing
anyone.”
The State Department said it was
releasing the rest of the installment — $60
million — to prevent the agency from
running out of cash by the end of the month.
segment in the Central Valley puts the entire
cost of the project at roughly $67 billion,
although officials said they hope to recover
the newly announced costs later. It was
projected to cost $40 billion in 2008 when
voters approved bond financing.
“I want the public to count on us to tell
the truth, whether it’s good, bad or ugly,”
said Dan Richard, chair of the California
High Speed Rail Authority’s board. “We’re
going to do every single thing in our power
to drive these costs down.”
Some of the fresh costs stem from trouble
acquiring the rights of way for the track in
the Central Valley. The authority entered into
construction contracts before fully securing
rights of way in all areas, a decision officials
said they wouldn’t make again. The decision
to enter into contracts quickly was partly due
to the need to spend $2.5 billion in federal
stimulus money by last fall.
Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joshua Fulton/U.S. Navy photo via AP, File
In this Aug. 27 file photo provided by the U.S. Navy, damage is visible as the
guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain steers towards Changi naval base in
Singapore following a collision with the merchant vessel Alnic MC.
The U.S. is UNWRA’s largest donor,
supplying nearly 30 percent of its budget.
The agency focuses on providing health care,
education and social services to Palestinians
in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria
and Lebanon.
Dems accuse GOP official of
‘amnesia’ on Trump vulgarity
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans
struggled to get their stories straight Tuesday
as President Donald Trump’s Homeland
Security secretary became the latest GOP
official to offer an inconclusive version of a
meeting in which Trump is said to have used
vulgar remarks that have been criticized as
racist.
Democrats accused Republicans of
selective amnesia, as Kirstjen Nielsen
testified under oath that she “did not hear”
Trump use a certain vulgarity to describe
African countries. “It was a meeting of 12
people. There was cross-talk,” she explained
at a congressional hearing, but she didn’t
“dispute the president was using tough
language.”
Under persistent questioning, Nielsen said
she didn’t recall the specific language used
by Trump. “What I was struck with frankly,
as I’m sure you were as well, was just the
general profanity used in the room by almost
everyone.”
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, angrily
criticized Nielsen’s comments, telling
her during a Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing, “Your silence and your amnesia is
complicity.”
Nielsen’s comments came five days after
the president ignited what GOP Sen. Lindsey
Graham termed an “s-storm” with his Oval
Office remarks.
The White House has not substantively
disputed accounts of the episode, in which
Trump is said to have used the term
“shithole” to describe African countries of
origin for potential immigrants to the U.S.
The revelations, semi-denials and continuing
comments have cast a pall over the White
House’s legislative agenda, brought the
country closer to the brink of a government
shutdown and sparked international outrage.
Cost climbs by $2.8 billion
for California bullet train
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The
estimated cost for the first phase of
California’s bullet train climbed by 35
percent on Tuesday to $10.6 billion, the latest
increase for the ambitious project to run a
high-speed rail line from San Francisco to
Los Angeles.
The $2.8 billion price hike for a 119-mile
New U.S. Embassy criticized
by Trump opens in London
LONDON (AP) — The new U.S.
Embassy in London, criticized last week by
President Donald Trump as too expensive
and poorly located, opened its doors to the
public Tuesday for the first time.
The gleaming embassy, in the formerly
industrial Nine Elms neighborhood in south
London, replaces the embassy in Grosvenor
Square that had for decades been associated
with the U.S. presence in the United
Kingdom. That building has been sold
to a Qatari government investment fund
planning to turn it into a luxury hotel.
U.S. officials say it would have cost
hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade
security at the older building and bring it up
to modern safety standards.
Trump tweeted last week that he would
not come to London to open the new embassy
because it represented a poor investment.
The president’s tweet read: “Reason I
canceled my trip to London is that I am
not a big fan of the Obama Administration
having sold perhaps the best located and
finest embassy in London for “peanuts,” only
to build a new one in an off location for 1.2
billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut
ribbon-NO!”
There were no ceremonies to mark the
public opening of the facility and some
landscaping features were still being put in
place. A line of evergreen trees was being
planted at the edge of the site, and only a
relatively small number of people showed up
on official business.