POPE Francis has apologised for insisting that victims of paedophile priests should show “proof” before they can be believed, saying he realised it was a “slap in the face” to victims that he never intended.

But he doubled down in defending a Chilean bishop accused by victims of covering up for the country’s most notorious paedophile priest, and he repeated that anyone who makes such accusations without providing evidence is guilty of slander.

Pope Francis issued the partial apology in an airborne press conference as he returned home to the Vatican from Chile and Peru, where the clergy abuse scandal and his own comments plunged the Chilean church into renewed crisis.

Pope Francis insisted that no one had yet provided him with evidence that Bishop Juan Barros had covered up abuse perpetrated by the Rev. Fernando Karadima, the charismatic Chilean priest who was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2011 for molesting and fondling minors in his Santiago parish.

Flying home from the most contested trip of his papacy, Francis said Barros would remain bishop of Osorno, Chile as long as there’s no evidence implicating him in the cover-up.

“I can’t condemn him because I don’t have evidence,” Pope Francis said.

“But I’m also convinced that he’s innocent.”

Karadima was removed from the ministry and sentenced by the Vatican in 2011 to a lifetime of penance and prayer based on the testimony of his victims.

A Chilean judge also found the victims to be credible, saying that while she had to drop charges against Rev. Karadima because too much time had passed, proof of his crimes wasn’t lacking.

The victims have said that Barros witnessed the abuse and did nothing to stop it. Bishop Barros denies the accusations.

“The best thing is for those who believe this to bring the evidence forward,” Pope Francis said.

But he warned that accusation without evidence is slander.

“Someone who accuses insistently without evidence, this is calumny,” he said.

He acknowledged that he misspoke when he said he needed to see “proof” to believe the accusations, saying it was a legal term that he didn’t intend.

“Here I have to apologise because the word ‘proof’ hurt them. It hurt a lot of abused people,” he said.

“I know how much they suffer. And to hear that the pope told them to their face that they need to bring a letter with proof? It’s a slap in the face.”