Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Chile: A Fantastic Woman

It’s Oscar season and a Chilean film is nominated for Best Foreign Language film:

A FANTASTIC WOMAN

Country: Chile

Language: Spanish

Chile’s track record in this category: The country’s second nomination

Director: Sebastian Lelio

Story: Orlando (Francisco Reyes) is a middle-aged businessman in the Chilean capital Santiago who’s in a relationship with the much younger Marina (Daniela Vega). After an evening out together, Orlando suffers an aneurysm and is taken to hospital. His relatives, including his former wife, cannot cope with the fact that Marina is a transgender woman: only Orlando’s brother accepts her for who she is. The police and hospital authorities are mistrustful and seem to suspect Marina of involvement in Orlando’s death.

Official website here.

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Pope Francis scandal persists

During his visit in Chile, Pope Francis insisted accusations that Bishop Juan Barros covered up a sexual abuse scandal were a calumny, since “There is not one shred of proof against him.”

It turns out that Francis (emphasis added)

received a victim’s letter in 2015 that graphically detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how other Chilean clergy ignored it, contradicting the pope’s recent insistence that no victims had come forward to denounce the cover-up, the letter’s author and members of Francis’ own sex- abuse commission have told The Associated Press.

Background from the AP report:

The Barros affair first caused shockwaves in January 2015 when Francis appointed him bishop of Osorno, Chile, over the objections of the leadership of Chile’s bishops’ conference and many local priests and laity. They accepted as credible the testimony against [Rev. Fernando] Karadima, a prominent Chilean cleric who was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2011 for abusing minors. Barros was a Karadima protege, and according to [Juan Carlos] Cruz and other victims, he witnessed the abuse and did nothing.

“Holy Father, I write you this letter because I’m tired of fighting, of crying and suffering,” Cruz wrote in Francis’ native Spanish. “Our story is well known and there’s no need to repeat it, except to tell you of the horror of having lived this abuse and how I wanted to kill myself.”

Cruz and other survivors had for years denounced the cover-up of Karadima’s crimes, but were dismissed as liars by the Chilean church hierarchy and the Vatican’s own ambassador in Santiago, who refused their repeated requests to meet before and after Barros was appointed

Barros allegedly was not simply covering up, but directly involved,

“More difficult and tough was when we were in Karadima’s room and Juan Barros — if he wasn’t kissing Karadima — would watch when Karadima would touch us — the minors — and make us kiss him, saying: ‘Put your mouth near mine and stick out your tongue.’ He would stick his out and kiss us with his tongue,” Cruz told the pope. “Juan Barros was a witness to all this innumerable times, not just with me but with others as well.”

Cruz gave the eight page letter to Cardinal O’Malley, who later assured him that he personally delivered the letter to Francis. On January 21, 2018, Francis insisted,

“No one has come forward, they haven’t provided any evidence for a judgment. This is all a bit vague, it’s something that can’t be accepted. You, in all good will, tell me that there are victims, but I haven’t seen any, because they haven’t come forward.”

Pope Francis sent an envoy to Chile to investigate sexual abuse claims shortly after apologizing for his remarks.

This does not bode well for the Catholic Church’s moral authority, or for the papacy.

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Pope Francis wants illegals to be welcome to the party

I livestreamed Pope Francis’s Mass in Iquique, Chile, last Thursday.

During the homily, Francis advocated for open borders. He started by talking about the wedding at Cana and how Mary told Jesus that the hosts had run out of wine, after which Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water into wine. Francis said,

Like Mary at Cana, let us make an effort to be more attentive in our squares and towns, to notice those whose lives have been “watered down”, who have lost – or have been robbed of – reasons for celebrating. And let us not be afraid to raise our voices and say: “They have no wine”.

From there, Francis catapulted into welcoming migrants (emphasis added),

The cry of the people of God, the cry of the poor, is a kind of prayer; it opens our hearts and teaches us to be attentive. Let us be attentive, then, to all situations of injustice and to new forms of exploitation that risk making so many of our brothers and sisters miss the joy of the party. Let us be attentive to the lack of steady employment, which destroys lives and homes. Let us be attentive to those who profit from the irregular status of many immigrants who don’t know the language or who don’t have their papers “in order”. Let us be attentive to the lack of shelter, land and employment experienced by so many families. And, like Mary, let us say with faith: They have no wine.

Like the servants at the party, let us offer what have, little as it may seem. Like them, let us not be afraid to “lend a hand”. May our solidarity in the commitment for justice be part of the dance or song that we can offer to our Lord. Let us also make the most of the opportunity to learn and make our own the values, the wisdom and the faith that migrants bring with them. Without being closed to those “jars” so full of wisdom and history brought by those who continue to come to these lands. Let us not deprive ourselves of all the good that they have to contribute.

I’m no theologian, but this argument is missing the fact that in civil society, the immigrants have the duty of abiding by the country’s laws and mores. Francis instead advocates for us “to learn and make our own the values, the wisdom and the faith that migrants bring with them.”

A democratic civil society under the rule of law can only exist when all who live in it understand their duties and responsibilities. It is not one big party where divine intervention bails you out when you run out of wine. It is a place where lawful citizens are allowed to keep what they have earned from the fruit of their labor and enterprise, with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Every citizen understands his/her duty to respect the rights (and property) of others and abide by the rule of law. That is its underlying value.

Once any immigrant understands that concept, by all means I’m appreciative of “those “jars” so full of wisdom and history brought by those who continue to come to these lands,” whatever they may be.

Francis did not touch on the question of how to raise the immigrants’ lands of origin to the same standard.

And by the way, Jesus and Mary were invited guests at the wedding at Cana. They did not crash that party.

In other Francis news,

At the end of his three-day visit to Chile, Pope Francis came to the defense of a controversial bishop, saying accusations that he helped cover up abuse are unproven and amount to “calumny.”

Responding to a Chilean journalist who asked about the issue, Pope Francis said “the day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I’ll speak. There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Chile: Papal visit roundup UPDATED with live feed

Pope Francis is in Chile advocating open borders.

Francis officiated Mass in the Mapuche region after two Catholic churches and three helicopters belonging to forestry companies were set on fire.

He also met with sexual abuse victims.

Here’s a brief roundup:
Pope wraps up Chile stop with visit to migrants, on to Peru (emphasis added)

Upon his arrival in Chile, Francis said the country’s future lies in its ability to listen, including “to the migrants who knock on the doors of this country in search of a better life, but also with the strength and the hope of helping to build a better life for all.”

Even though the numbers are comparatively small, Chile had the fastest annual rate of migrant growth of any country in Latin American between 2010 and 2015, according to U.N. and church statistics.

Most of the newcomers are Haitians, who often face language barriers that limit their job prospects.

Pope finds fault with Chile, indigenous group. He says the nation must implements agreements and radical factions must stop the violence

Pope Francis urges Chile’s Mapuche to shun ‘violence’.

Defend culture but shun violence, pope tells Chile’s indigenous Mapuche

Pope Francis meets sex abuse victims in Chile

The meeting at the Vatican’s mission in Santiago was “strictly private”, his office said, providing no further details.

Earlier during his visit to Chile, the Pope felt “pain and shame” over the sex abuse scandal, asking the victims for forgiveness.

He has been criticised in Chile for a decision to ordain a bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse by a priest.

UPDATE
Livefeed to papal Mass,

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Chile: Piñera wins

I haven’t had the opportunity to post about it, but I’m very glad Sebastián Piñera won last Sunday.

The Economist says A resounding win for the conservative candidate reaffirms Chileans’ centrist leanings, where

The result has shaken the centre-left. Mr Guillier, who ran as an heir to President Michelle Bachelet, called it a “hard defeat”. The bloc never recovered from a graft scandal in 2015 involving her son (though not the president herself). It has split over the pace and depth of her leftish reforms, such as higher corporate taxes, tighter labour laws and free college. In the first round Mr Guillier was nearly bested by the candidate of a new leftist party.

One of Bachelet’s proposals was to amend the constitution and use gains from the copper industry to pay for her social programs, a la Venezuela. Not a good idea.

The Economist correctly states, “Chile still looks most comfortable in the centre: at once pro-market and socially aware.”Piñera was the best choice.

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Bolivia: Evo tweets about the JFK files

President-for-life (or until 2025, or so he says) Evo Morales has been tweeting about the JFK files released last week:

Bolivian President Evo Morales said this weekend that Chile made a “secret offer” to grant the country access to the ocean in exchange for an alliance against Peru. Morales made the statements this Sunday, October 29 when documents concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy were released by Unites States President Donald Trump. The documents allegedly contain evidence of the proposed alliance.

The alleged “offer” was made in December 1975 during Chile’s Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, and includes an offer of a 6.2-mile passage to the ocean.

Last time I checked, Pres. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, so it’s unclear why 1975 events would be included in the files, but hey, we’re talking about Evo here.

As far as the Chile-Bolivia border dispute goes,

The International Court of Justice of The Hague is waiting on the oral arguments of both countries that will take place during the first semester of 2018. A ruling is expected during the second half of the year.

I doubt that the ICJ will give any weight to the JFK flies.

But one never knows.

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Chile: Atacama in bloom

It only rains once every 5-10 years in Chile’s Atacama desert,

It is the flowering desert, a natural spectacle that occurs every five or 10 years due to the unpredictable phenomenon of El Niño, which warms the waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean. The evaporation of these warm currents on the coasts of Chile causes abundant rain in the Atacama Desert, which triggers the germination and flowering of more than 200 native plant species that have been hidden for years under gray soil, waiting for a few drops of water.



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Pence cuts LatAm trip short due to NoKo

Rather than returning on Friday, Vice President Mile Pence is cutting short his trip to Latin America so he can join the president at a meeting about North Korea, but he’s still going to Panama.

The White House announced Wednesday that Pence would travel to Camp Davidwith the president on Friday to meet with the White House national security team to discuss South Asia strategy.

VP Pence is currently in Chile, where he urged Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Mexico to isolate North Korea during his news conference with Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet.

Trade between Latin American countries and North Korea is not significant.

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