EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and has a data base updated with all known cases. If you know of any case that has not seen the light, you can write to us at: [email protected]. If it is a case in Latin America, the address is: [email protected].
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The Society of Jesus, the order to which Pope Francis belongs, has always denied that it knew about the abuse of minors by the Catalan Jesuit Luis Tó González, sentenced to two years in prison, which he did not serve, for abusing a minor in 1992 in the Sant Ignasi school in Barcelona, and who was sent to Bolivia after the sentence, with a farewell party in his honor. The order denied to EL PAÍS in 2018, when this newspaper revealed his transfer to the South American country, that the religious had continued to be in contact with minors there and that more complaints against him had arisen at his destination. The Jesuits were lying: this newspaper uncovered a year ago that Tó landed in Bolivia as a professor of sexual ethics for novices, he continued to sexually assault minors and his superiors were aware of all this after an internal complaint in 2001 by a member of the order, who was expelled. Now the scandal goes up one more step: the internal documentation of the order to which this newspaper has had access reveals that both the Jesuits of Catalonia and the general of the Company in Rome were periodically informed of the risk of Tó’s recidivism and how they underestimated him. for 25 years, since he first set foot in Latin America, in 1992, until his death, in 2017. They simply kept him in his positions or moved him from one place to another. The Company’s press office in Spain, consulted by this newspaper, did not want to make any assessments. On the other hand, a spokesperson for the Jesuits of Bolivia has declared that the case and its documentation are in the hands of justice and they are waiting to hear the judicial resolution and assume responsibilities.
The general of the order himself, the Dutchman Peter-Hans Kovelnbach, now deceased, signed a document in 1998 for the Catalan Jesuit to establish his permanent residence in Bolivia, despite the concern it aroused. This newspaper has had access to around twenty letters, most with the signatures of the provincials – the highest position of the order in a country – in Spain and Bolivia, which show that they preferred that the cleric remain in the American country. There his conviction was not public and he could go unnoticed, despite the danger it posed, unlike in Spain, where the news had appeared in the press. “Conversing with Fr. Renau, provincial of Tarraconense [Cataluña], we see that it would not be advisable in any way for his return to Barcelona, given the trial and sentence that fell on him. That is why we both find it convenient to transfer him to Bolivia, which also has a character of personal rehabilitation in the Company,” the then provincial in Bolivia, the Catalan Marcos Recolons, wrote in October 1998 to the head of the order.
Recolons is one of the provincials accused by the Bolivian justice system of having covered up several cases of abuse, an investigation opened as a result of the EL PAÍS investigations in 2023. The best-known case was that of the Jesuit Alfonso Pedrajas, a case uncovered by this newspaper and that shocked the country. He was a Valencian missionary in Bolivia who wrote a secret diary in which he admitted to having abused at least 85 minors and that his superiors protected him. Recolons was mentioned among them. In the diary, Pedrajas mentioned other Jesuit friends, among them Luis Tó. This caused new complaints to emerge against Tó, both in Bolivia and Spain, and, for the first time, it became clear how Recolons covered up those accusations. In total, this newspaper has counted at least eight victims of Tó, both men and women, at the Barcelona school of Sant Ignasi. The case of Frances Peris also came to light, another Jesuit from the Casp school, also in Barcelona, who was sent to Bolivia after being accused of abuse. As this newspaper revealed, he was also later denounced there. At that time, both those responsible for the order in Spain and Bolivia refused to report what they knew. EL PAÍS has recorded accusations against 15 Jesuits at the Casp school and the adjacent one, San Estanislao de Kostka.
These crossed letters that are now coming to light describe in detail the transfer from Barcelona to La Paz in 1992, a month after receiving a sentence for abuses from the Barcelona Court. However, at first the Bolivian Jesuit community was reticent: “The news of Luis Tó’s conviction has appeared here in many newspapers with great detail and in big headlines. (…) Unfortunately, in these circumstances, for obvious reasons, I do not see it possible to maintain the offer I made to you to come to work in Bolivia.” This was the first letter that the then provincial in Bolivia, Luis Palomera, sent in 1992 to the order in Catalonia.
Finally Palomera agreed and Tó was transferred to the Latin American country to spend an undetermined period of time. In a second letter, Palomera says: “I spoke at length with him and we understood each other well.” He was assigned to the Virgen Milagrosa parish and the El Alto neighborhood.
![Personal and religious information sheet of the pedophile Luis Tó.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/P6ZKUEGJPJHH7EY4PR2JWNWXQM.jpg?auth=2d0b3075cd70da39927d925e9e1237baf28a9808690a823f564825386497bcd1&width=414)
The relationship of the superiors with Tó, during his years in Bolivia, seems constant. Tó continued to belong to the Catalan Jesuit community, which, in addition, was the one that was paying for the psychological therapy that he received both in the Latin American country and in Barcelona, during some visits that he continued to make to Spain. In fact, during one of these visits to the Catalan capital the alarm goes off again. In a letter dated October 17, 1994, an official from the Casp school warns the newly appointed provincial of the Jesuits in Bolivia, Marcos Recolons, that Tó could be abusing minors in Bolivia. “I want to communicate to you the fears of some people who treated him during the days he was here. It is the following: on the visits that Luis made, he showed a large number of photographs of his activity in El Alto. Among them, which dealt with very varied topics, a photo of a girl appeared, always the same and in a fairly close-up shot, and with notable frequency. Maybe about 10 times,” the letter reads. Several teachers who saw the images feared for the girls given Tó’s background in Barcelona. “Given the situation, I feel obliged to tell you about it so that you can anticipate,” adds the person in charge of the Casp school who writes. This is proof that the Jesuits lied in 2018 when they stated that Tó was not in contact with minors in Bolivia.
What’s more, the internal documentation reveals precisely the email exchanges in the order following questions from EL PAÍS when it published the case in 2018, to find out what they should respond. The Jesuits of Barcelona transmit to their office in Bolivia, for example, a very specific one from this newspaper: “According to what we have, in 1992 his first assignment was as parochial vicar. Was there contact with minors there?” Internal response: “Probably there could have been contact with minors.” But the Jesuits in Spain denied it in their responses to this newspaper.
![Document from the Jesuit school of Casp in Barcelona alerting the community in Bolivia of Luis Tó's contact with minors.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/SWIJKV7QRRGGRHNV6Z5OUN2SYE.jpg?auth=1c0b29d60624540d0e19d645965755a4fbab1729c020990dde61b66f7da0410e&width=414)
Regarding the therapy that the religious received, the documents describe that it was insufficient. Mainly, because Tó does not assume that sexual abuse of minors is a crime and a problem. “As it is now, it won’t get better. On the other hand, Luis [Tó] You can repeat the facts at any time. Perhaps he is still under the public ‘bludgeon’ that they gave him, but both geographical and temporal distance can make him lower his guard and repeat what he has done for many years, and now we have known,” appears in a letter from the order in Barcelona to Recolons, to detail how Tó’s psychological sessions were going in Spain. This issue of refusing to “accept” that he is a pedophile continues to appear in several letters until 1997, all of them addressed to those responsible for the Company in the Latin American country. Even some Jesuits from Barcelona wrote to Tó to convince him that he should change: “There are people you have hurt,” says one of these letters.
Around that time, as EL PAÍS revealed a year ago, a Jesuit novice reported to his superiors in 2001 that Luis Tó had continued abusing indigenous minors, something that he had witnessed in the previous years working with him. The Jesuits’ response was to expel the complainant, Pedro Lima. And now it is known that, after these alleged abuses, in 1997 the order changed Luis Tó’s country again: he sent him to Lima, Peru. There he would continue receiving psychological help. In a June 1997 letter from Tó to Recolons, he informs him that the therapy “continues its course” and, for the first time, he recognizes what he has done: “I see my enormous failures and the reasons for them and what I should try to do.” to change.” Those responsible for the order in Peru, as interpreted in the letters, knew Tó’s entire history of abuse.
“There are children even in the soup”
Tó spent a year in Peru. In the correspondence he maintains with Recolons, Tó asks him to return to Bolivia and he accepts. The provincial offers him a position in the management of Fe y Alegría, the entity that manages the schools in the country, but Recolons has doubts about where Tó will live: “What is not clear to me is whether it is appropriate for you to live in Següencoma or in San Calixto , because in Següencoma there are even children in the soup (well, a little less).”
![The provincial in Bolivia writes to Luis Tó announcing his return to the country from Peru.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/D6RGV5ZX6RDQTP3SO2C7G6JIVQ.jpg?auth=50085cfc4e84c1819e9f9070cd2bacdde362429fb6674b8b315f4e5da7002adf&width=414)
And not only that, but Recolons makes an agreement with the order in Catalonia so that the pedophile takes up residence in Bolivia and becomes dependent on the community of the Latin American country and not the Catalan one. Jesús Renau, provincial of the Jesuits in Catalonia, writes to Recolons: “I think the main reason is that he is very focused on his Fe y Alegría work and that he himself wants to remain in those lands. I think that at his age, it is better not to make new changes. On the other hand, as you told me, in Bolivia his collaboration is really appreciated given his great experience in the field of education. I believe, therefore, that the appropriate thing is for you to ask Father General to transcribe it to your province.” Following this correspondence, Recolons contacted the order’s curia in Rome to report on Tó’s story and for the general to sign the permanent transfer.
Recolons finished his period as provincial in 1999. After a few years as a senior official of the order, his career took him to Rome. In 2004, the new general of the order, Adolfo Nicolás Pachón, appointed him regional assistant for Latin America in 2004 and elevated him to counselor in 2008, a position that placed him at the top of the congregation’s power worldwide. At that time he received a visit from several friends to Rome, among whom was Pedrajas, the Jesuit whom he had protected from the accusations of pedophilia that were against him. The history of Recolons and these new revelations indicate that the abuse scandal came to the attention of the Company’s top leadership and they did nothing.
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