The Argentine Justice has sentenced the former bishop of Oran to four years and six months in prison (in northern Argentina) Gustavo Zanchetta for sexually abusing two former seminarians and has ordered their immediate arrest. The closeness of this former bishop to Pope Francis, who readmitted him to the Holy See in mid-2020, when the complaints had already come to light, has not saved him from the condemnation of civil justice. Chamber II of the Oral Court of the province of Salta, to which Orán belongs, has condemned him this Friday for “continued simple sexual abuse aggravated by being committed by a minister of religious worship.”
“Thanks to the people who supported us for so many years, thanks to the priests who believed us, thanks to a journalist who was able to tell everything, thanks to our families for accompanying us in silence, thanks to justice,” one of the victims wrote. on social media after conviction.
Throughout the trial, different priests testified against who was the bishop of Oran between July 2013 and 2017. According to their testimonies, most seminarians were afraid of Zanchetta and claimed that he gave “preferential” treatment to some applicants, while others he ignored. The bishop used to ask for massages and gave “hugs that, in general, were from behind and lasted longer than necessary,” according to the statements of one of the witnesses cited by the newspaper. The nation.
The priest Gabriel Acevedo, who was spiritual director of the seminarians, spoke in court about the “physical approaches” of the bishop to some of the young people who lived in the parish house of the Cathedral of Oran and reported that in 2014 the chancellor of the Bishopric found on Zanchetta’s cell phone “pornographic content in which the bishop and some young people appeared.”
During the trial, Zanchetta testified and denied all the accusations against him. “I feel a mixture of anger and pity for you. How incredible that you do not recognize anything ”, one of the seminarians who testified against him, Marcio Torina, replied from Facebook. “Just as the civil justice acted, I expect the same from the canonical one”, he continued in reference to the ecclesiastical process that he will also have to face. “How easy it is to continue having ecclesial protection, that Francis himself has taken you to Rome and invented a little job for you [un trabajo]. Have shelter and daily food. You have to know that you were ruining our lives. Breaking dreams and projects. Today many of us fight it day by day, we experience the bitter taste of loneliness, misunderstanding and prejudice”, underlined in his writing Torina.
The religious resigned from the Bishopric of Oran in 2017 alleging health problems after months before five priests had accused him of sexual abuse, authoritarianism and economic mismanagement with ecclesiastical properties. Gabriel Acevedo was one of the complainants.
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Zanchetta, who is also involved in an economic investigation for alleged fraud and fraudulent administration in the Bishopric of Oran, was transferred from Oran to the Argentine province of Corrientes, then to Madrid, until Francis took him to the Vatican at the end of 2017.
The Pope had a hard time admitting the accusations. At first he assured that it was a matter of a bad relationship with his subordinates, but later he considered it opportune to open a canonical process. Even so, the link between the two was maintained and after having removed him from his position as advisor to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See of the Vatican, in mid-2020 he reinstated him.
Relatives and friends of the victims, who were awaiting sentencing outside the Salta court, criticized the authorities for mounting a police operation that allowed Zanchetta to leave through a back door instead of appearing handcuffed to those who had mobilized to demand justice. . “How many lives has this man damaged. I think what the police did is terrible. Today it was the turn of those young people, tomorrow it could happen to their children. Zanchetta still has a lot of power. They can’t cover up a rapist,” shouted one of the people stationed at the entrance to the courthouse.
The Argentine Church has apologized this Friday to those who were abused by the former bishop through a statement: “We want to express our closeness to the victims and express a strong and sincere request for forgiveness on behalf of the entire Church.” Zanchetta was detained in Regional Unit 2 of Salta and the judges ordered that, once the conviction is final, his data be “registered in the Genetic Data Bank.”
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