Bolivian bishops express their support for Bishop Robert Flock on Nov. 13, 2023. / Credit: Bolivian Episcopal Conference (CEB)
ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 15, 2023 / 09:00 am (CNA).
During its plenary assembly, the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference expres… […]
null / Daniel Tadevosyan/Shutterstock
ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 31, 2023 / 10:30 am (CNA).
In the ongoing investigation in Bolivia into sexual abuse allegedly committed by priests and male religious, mostly Jesuits, the local prosecutor’s office ha… […]
Bolivia Attorney General Juan Lanchipa. / Credit: Facebook page of Bolivia attorney general’s office
ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 14, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
Bolivia’s attorney general’s office announced July 10 that it has now received a complete copy of the diary of deceased Jesuit Alfonso Pedrajas in which the priest discloses he sexually abused at least 85 minors in the course of his ministry.
A few weeks ago, the Bolivian attorney general’s office confirmed that on June 20 it had received a copy of the diary from the Society of Jesus in Bolivia but charged that it contained “gaps in the sequence of pages and sections crossed out and deleted.”
In response to the accusation, the religious order denied having tampered with the contents, arguing that the material it received had arrived in a sealed envelope that came from Rome via courier, sent by the general curia of the Society of Jesus, which in turn had received it from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). The Jesuits turned over the envelope “unopened, just as it was received” to the attorney general’s office.
The Jesuits in Bolivia denied knowing how the DDF had gotten a copy.
After the attorney general’s office reviewed the material, Attorney General Juan Lanchipa pointed out July 11 that the copy delivered on June 20 by the Jesuits has erasures that “correspond to names, dates, and places.”
“This shows that the Church has not complied with its commitment to cooperate in the investigation, but on the contrary, it is putting up these kinds of obstacles,” he charged.
Lanchipa also informed the media that on July 10 he had received the complete diary of the priest Pedrajas via international cooperation, according to the media outlet Infobae.
International juridical cooperation is collaboration between states through their competent authorities to obtain information, documents, proofs, evidence, and other procedures that involve actions outside the state that requires it.
“We have sent a copy of this diary, which they have sent us from Spain to the Cochabamba departmental prosecutor’s office, so that they can carry out investigations based on its content,” Lanchipa explained.
In response, the Society of Jesus reiterated in a July 12 statement its “spirit of transparency and cooperation with the justice system.”
At the same time, the Jesuits denied having obstructed ongoing investigations or having altered Pedrajas’ diary.
The Jesuit order emphasized that “any erasure, amendment, or cutouts from this diary was not carried out by the Society of Jesus nor is it known who could have done it, since the Jesuits in Bolivia never had access to said document.”
The arrival in the country of a complete copy of the material, they said, “can contribute positively to clarify the facts.”
The attorney general reported on the existence of a second diary: “We have another diary from this priest Antonio [Luis María] Roma, and in all cases we can show that these are abominable, horrifying acts that have been committed against our children, against our young people.”
The Bolivian state general prosecutor, Wilfredo Chávez, also issued a statement on the matter: “There is one more diary from a case in Santa Cruz; it’s a handwritten diary. Here the aberrations that a priest allegedly carried out on girls in the Santa Cruz Chaco [plains area] are narrated and they are cases that must be investigated. He’s a priest who has already passed away, but we still have to move forward in these cases. The state is the guarantor [of justice],” he explained.
The spokesman for the Society of Jesus in Bolivia, Jesuit Father Sergio Montes, reported that the former delegate for safe and healthy environments of the order, Father Osvaldo Chirveches, brought a copy of the Jesuit Luis María Roma’s diary to the La Paz prosecutor’s office on May 9.
The diary was part of the file that was turned over when making the complaint against the priest.
Along with it, other documentation was presented, the product of the previous investigation carried out by the Society of Jesus in 2019, “including the deplorable photographic material” that became public.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
null / Credit: PxHere
ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 11, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
The personal diary of the Jesuit priest Alfonso “Pica” Pedrajas, who died in 2009, has been at the center of a sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Society of Jesus in B… […]
Pope Francis at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 17, 2023. / Vatican Media
ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 16, 2023 / 17:05 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis has sent a letter to the president of Bolivia expressing “feelings of shame and dismay” and a firm promise to work with the government of the South American country to end clerical sexual abuse of minors.
The letter, released Friday according to the Associated Press but signed on May 31 and addressed to Bolivian President Luis Arce, is a response to another letter sent to the pontiff on May 22 by the South American president. The pope’s letter was made public on May 15 on the official Twitter account of the Bolivian president.
“Dear Mr. President: I have read your letter and I thank you for the clarity and deference with which you share with me your concern, outrage, and condemnation and that of the citizens of that beloved nation, due to the deplorable events that have affected and continue to affect individuals sexually abused by members of the Church,” the pope wrote at the beginning of his letter.
The pontiff then expressed his sorrow: “In the face of the tangle of evil caused by those who, betraying their mission as priests, pastors, and educators — and who, as you express — committed ‘crimes that harm boys and girls for life, and that also harm the Church,’ I express my sorrow and my feelings of shame and dismay.”
In April 2023, a scandal rocked the Church in Bolivia when a report in the Spanish newspaper El País exposed the late Jesuit Alfonso Pedrajas Moreno for having sexually abused as many as 85 minors during his ministry. This revelation led to reports of more cases of abuse committed by Jesuits and other religious congregations.
At another point in the letter, the pope revealed that he was “moved and shocked” when thinking “of the disastrous actions of those priests and also of the negligence of those who should have exercised oversight.”
The Holy Father noted that the “ministers of the Church must be ‘guardians’ and guarantors of the good and of the future of the young generations, and stand out for propagating the attitudes and sentiments that have characterized the presence of Jesus among men.”
“This problem continues to be one of the greatest challenges for the Church of our time,” the pope noted.
Pope Francis also expressed to Arce his “firm desire to respond with the full cooperation of the Church to work alongside the government of your country.”
“I ask the Lord to help us to generously fulfill our duty to repair injustices and to always be faithful to the task of protecting those who are so dear to Jesus,” the pontiff concluded.
For his part, Arce thanked the pope on Twitter for his response, “in which he shares our great concern, outrage, and condemnation of the cases of pedophilia” in the country.
In addition, the head of state insists on the need to “strengthen controls to prevent foreign priests with a history of sexual crimes from entering the country.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Bishop Giovani Arana of El Alto, Bolivia. / Credit: CEB
ACI Prensa Staff, May 30, 2023 / 17:00 pm (CNA).
Bishop Giovani Arana of El Alto, secretary general of the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference, pointed out in his homily for Pentecost Sunday on M… […]
The facade of Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in La Paz, Bolivia. / Credit: Yasemin Olgunoz Berber/Shutterstock
ACI Prensa Staff, May 25, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Faced with the scandal over allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by vari… […]
Father Bernardo Mercado, the Jesuit provincial in Bolivia. / Credit: ACI Prensa/YouTube screen shot
ACI Prensa Staff, May 24, 2023 / 11:15 am (CNA).
The Jesuit provincial in Bolivia, Father Bernardo Mercado, admitted that his religious order ma… […]
Vatican’s top abuse investigator Maltese archbishop Charles Scicluna (right) and fellow papal envoy Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu give a press conference at the Apostolic Nunciature in Santiago, Chile, on June 19, 2018. / Claudio Reyes/AFP via Getty Images
ACI Prensa Staff, May 23, 2023 / 15:01 pm (CNA).
In the wake of a new wave of scandals due to allegations of sexual abuse of minors committed by members of various religious orders in the country, the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference has announced that Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, will arrive in the country to examine the progress being made in abuse prevention.
In a statement posted May 21 on their website, the bishops point out that they themselves requested that the expert priest come to the country. According to the bishops, the visit had already been in the works for three years.
The conference said that in the coming days “meetings of a reflective nature” will be held and that they will take place in “a climate of profound closeness to all those who have been victims of the scourge of abuse in the Church.”
The bishops reiterated their “firm commitment to justice” and their pastoral service to the most vulnerable.
Bertomeu works in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Along with Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna, he was a delegate of Pope Francis to deal with cases of sexual abuse in the Church in Chile.
In February 2018, the two investigated an alleged cover-up by the former bishop of Osorno, Juan Barros, in the abuses committed by the late priest Fernando Karadima, whom the Vatican found guilty of sexual abuse in January 2011.
The results of the investigations by Bertomeu and Scicluna were delivered to the pope, who then decided to meet with all the Chilean bishops in May 2018. At the end of that meeting, the prelates of the South American country put their positions in the hands of the Holy Father.
Bertomeu and Scicluna returned to Chile in June 2018 as part of a “pastoral mission” to continue reviewing the abuse issues. Finally, some of the bishops were removed from their dioceses by Pope Francis and others were retained.
In recent years, Bertomeu has dedicated himself to giving conferences in various countries, seeking to raise awareness about the importance of abuse prevention and prompt attention to victims.
In March of this year, during a conference on “safe spaces” organized by the Venezuelan bishops, Bertomeu charged that the abuse of power is much more serious within a spiritual institution than in any other body, because it can totally destroy the person.
“You find a man, a woman of God who helps you make your vocation flourish. If that person is an aggressor, that person can completely destroy you. Therefore abuse in the Church is much more serious than in other social institutions, because the abuse is committed by someone who presents himself in the name of God. It’s the biggest perversion there can be,” he emphasized.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
null / Credit: Pixabay (Public Domain)
ACI Prensa Staff, May 22, 2023 / 15:45 pm (CNA).
In the midst of allegations of sexual abuse against Jesuit priests in Bolivia, a Carmelite priest was arrested recently by the authorities, and accusations … […]
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