Sex abuse activists press pope on Argentina crimes
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Activists against abuse by Roman Catholic clergy urged Pope Francis on Tuesday to apologize for what they called the Argentine church’s protection of two priests who were eventually convicted of sexually assaulting children.
The U.S.-based Bishop Accountability group cited the case of Father Julio Cesar Grassi, who ran the “Happy Children” foundation and was convicted of pedophilia in 2008, and Father Napoleon Sasso, convicted in 2007 of abusing girls at a soup kitchen in suburban Buenos Aires.
The Buenos Aires archbishop’s office didn’t immediately respond Tuesday.
The pope’s authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, told the Associated Press before Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope last week that he had drawn an increasingly tough line on clergy abuse. Bergoglio insisted that accused priests face trial, and imposed a thorough screening process in an attempt to weed out future problems, Rubin said.
In the 2012 book “On Heaven and Earth,” in which Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorka engage in a religious dialogue, the future pope said the church should not ignore the sexual abuse of minors by priests.
“When that happens, we must never turn a blind eye. You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person,” he said, adding that priests guilty of such offenses should be stripped of their right to perform priestly duties.
Bergoglio said the church shouldn’t try to keep such cases quiet. “I do not believe in taking positions that uphold a certain corporative spirit in order to avoid damaging the image of the institution,” he said.
Nobody has presented evidence that Bergoglio was directly involved covering up sex abuse. But a lawyer for the victims, Ernesto Moreau, told the AP that as the top authority for the Argentine church, Bergoglio was ultimately responsible for the treatment of the victims, who have yet to get medical treatment or compensation.
“Bergoglio has been the strongest man in the Argentine church since the beginning of this century,” Moreau said, and yet “the leadership of the church has never done anything to remove these people from these places, and neither has it done anything to relieve the pain of the victims.”