Associated Press reports. Other members include clergy, nuns, and laypeople, and Cruz is the first out gay person on it as well as the first Latin American.“I’m very honored,” Cruz told the Washington Blade. “I’m a survivor.
I’m gay. I’m a layperson. I’m Catholic.” Two Chilean cardinals had blocked an earlier move to put him on the commission.Cruz and two other men came forward in 2010 to accuse Chilean priest Fernando Karadima of sexually abusing them when they were minors.
The Vatican found him guilty in 2011, and then-Pope Benedict XVI sentenced him to a life of prayer and penance. Pope Francis defrocked Karadima in 2018.That year Francis met with Cruz and other survivors.