LA PAZ, Bolivia — The Vatican has despatched to Bolivia the diary of the late Alfonso Pedrajas, a Jesuit priest who allegedly confessed to abusing dozens of minors in Bolivia dating again to the 1970s, the most up-to-date progress in a pedophilia scandal that has shaken the Andean region.
In a assertion produced Thursday, the Culture of Jesus of Bolivia reported the diary was despatched to them by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of Religion — which handles clergy sexual abuse instances — and then turned over to the prosecutor’s place of work in the town of Cochabamba, wherever the alleged abuse took place.
The Culture of Jesus, as the Jesuits are recognized, said it will ask for a duplicate of the diary composed by Pedrajas, who died in 2009, in buy to know its complete contents, considering the fact that only a handful of excerpts have been produced in April by Spanish newspaper El País, which 1st claimed on it. In the diary, Pedrajas allegedly confesses to owning abused 85 minors, generally in boarding educational institutions in Cochabamba in between the 1970s and 1990s.
The diary arrived in Bolivia significantly less than 1 week right after Pope Francis despatched a letter to President Luis Arce, expressing issue and saying he was “dismayed” by the allegations of sexual abuse fully commited by clergymen and pledging the Church’s cooperation in the investigation carried out by the Bolivian justice technique.
A several days immediately after the Pedrajas case arrived to light-weight light, Francis sent just one of his best sex crimes investigators to Bolivia. Spanish priest Jordi Bertomeu had earlier led the investigations into abuses fully commited by monks in Chile and Paraguay.
Bertomeu was in Bolivia for two days and did not make statements to the press. The Bolivian Church clarified that the take a look at was not linked to the pedophilia scandal but experienced been prepared in progress.
New circumstances of sexual abuse have been uncovered as a outcome of this probe and one priest was sent to pre-demo detention for a few months last month.
So considerably, there are at least 12 judicial investigations versus clergy users in Bolivia, together with one particular which by now resulted in a 10-yr prison sentence for a priest billed with rape, the Bolivian Episcopal Convention mentioned.
In quite a few of the conditions, those who have been accused of abuse have previously died.
