VATICAN CITY — All 34 of Chile’s Roman Catholic bishops offered their resignations on Friday over a child sexual abuse scandal, and asked forgiveness for the “pain they caused the victims, the pope, the people of God, and our country for the grave errors and omissions we committed.”

The mass resignation — the first of its kind, according to the Vatican — came after Pope Francis accused the bishops at an emergency meeting this week of failing to investigate complaints, allowing evidence to be destroyed, and covering up for abusive priests by moving them from place to place. He said the systemic failures had left him “perplexed and ashamed.”

Outrage over the scandal has shaken the church for years, but it was stirred anew in January when Pope Francis publicly defended Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, whom he appointed to the Diocese of Osorno in 2015. Bishop Barros had been accused of ignoring and covering up the repeated abuse of minors by the Chilean priest Fernando Karadima.

The fallout prompted the pope to assign two investigators, who took the testimony of 64 people and produced a damning 2,300-page report on clerical sexual abuses in Chile and attempts to conceal the activity. The report detailed widespread failings on the part of the church hierarchy, and led to this week’s three-day meeting of the bishops at the Vatican.