CHILE CRACKDOWN: 30 arrested as anger grows at Pope visit

Scores of people were arrested in the southern city of Concepción after demonstrating against the government, claiming they “would not show the real image of Chile” to Pope Francis.

A spokesman for the protesters, Claudio Melgarejo, claimed at least 200 people had to be dispersed during the first day of the pontiff’s visit.

He said: “We are not against the visit of the Pope.

“We are against the image that the executive wants to give him that everything is fine here, which is not the case.”

Today, the number of Catholic churches that have been attacked in Chile in the past week rose to eight, both in the capital and in southern regions.

Riot police clashed with some 200 people protesting against the sexual abuse scandal and the cost of the papal visit as the Pope said Mass for some 400,000 people in a nearby park.

At the presidential palace, he expressed “pain and shame” over a sexual abuse scandal in the Chilean Catholic church.

The Pope said: ”Here I feel bound to express my pain and shame at the irreparable damage caused to children by some ministers of the Church.

“I am one with my brother bishops, for it is right to ask for forgiveness and make every effort to support the victims, even as we commit ourselves to ensuring that such things do not happen again.”

Catholics have been upset with the Pope’s appointment in 2015 of Bishop Juan Barros to head the small diocese of Osorno in south-central Chile.

Bishop Barros, who attended Tuesday’s Mass, has been accused of a cover-up of sexual abuse – an allegation he denies.

But the scandal has gripped Chile, and, along with growing secularisation, it has hurt the standing of a Church that defended human rights during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

A group opposed to the Pope’s visit posted on Twitter: “No more abuse, no more cover-ups, no more hypocrisy.”

At least eight Catholic churches have been attacked in Chile over the past week, including one with a homemade bomb where vandals left a pamphlet reading: “Pope Francis, the next bomb will be in your robe.”

Hours after the Pope arrived in Chile on Monday, two small wooden churches were burned to the ground near Temuco, where Francis is due to visit on Wednesday.

The indigenous Mapuche in the area accuse the state and private companies of taking their ancestral lands. The Mapuche say the pope’s ceremony will be held on seized land.

A church in the capital was attacked during the night, causing minor damage. Vandals burned Chilean and Vatican flags at the site and tossed pamphlets with threats against the pope.

Graffiti on one Santiago church read “Burn pope and “pope accomplice.”

(Additional reporting by Maria Ortega.)