Sex case against prominent Chilean priest dropped

A Chilean judge ruled that a prominent Roman Catholic priest, Fernando Karadima, had engaged in sexual abuse of three minors in the past but could not be tried because the statute of limitations had run out. Four men charged in criminal complaints that they had been abused by Karadima, 80, between 1980 and 1995 during visits he made to a parish they attended as boys in an upscale neighborhood in Santiago. The case against Karadima, who trained many of the priests now in leadership positions in the Chilean Catholic Church, was dismissed in December 2010 because the 10-year statute of limitation on such crimes had expired. But it was reopened in March after the Vatican found the priest guilty of sexual abuse of minors and ordered him confined to a nunnery and forbidden from saying mass. Judge Jessica Gonzales ruled that Karadima had committed sexual abuses against three of his accusers. But she said that in view of how long ago the crimes were committed, "Fernando Karadima Farinas' criminal responsibility, derived from reiterated crimes of dishonest abuse, is extinguished." According to the Chilean church, 17 priests and a deacon have been found guilty of sexual abuse of minors in Chile, eight of them by church trials and 10 by ordinary criminal courts.