All 34 Chilean bishops who attended a crisis meeting this week with Pope Francis about the cover-up of sexual abuse in their country have offered their resignation, the bishops said in a statement released on Friday.



It was not immediately clear if the pope had accepted their resignation.



"We have put our positions in the hands of the Holy Father and will leave it to him to decide freely for each of us," the bishops said in their statement, in which they also apologized to Chile, the victims of abuse and the pope for the scandal.