Vatican City, Feb 25, 2019 / 04:31 pm (CNA).- An Argentine newspaper has published documents purporting to show that the Vatican knew about allegations of sexual abuse by Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta prior to his Dec. 2017 appointment to a Vatican office, a charge that the Vatican has repeatedly denied.
Zanchetta, 54, had resigned as Bishop of Orán in Aug. 2017, and was appointed four months later by Pope Francis to a newly-created position in the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), which oversees the Vatican’s assets and real estate holdings.
Documents published Feb. 21 by The Tribune, a newspaper in the Salta region of Argentina, purport to show that the Vatican received a complaint about Zanchetta in 2015 and that Pope Francis had spoken to Zanchetta after the complaint was filed. The documents also claim that Zanchetta failed to register and report the sale of two church properties worth millions of dollars.
The documents seem to confirm earlier reporting by the Associated Press. Zanchetta also faces a judicial complaint of sexual abuse in Argentina that was recently made public.
Fr. Juan Jose Manzano, Zanchetta’s former vicar general in the diocese of Orán, told the Associated Press that the Vatican received complaints against Zanchetta in both 2015 and 2017, but that the 2015 complaint against Zanchetta was not issued as an official canonical complaint.
According to The Tribune’s report, one of the Zanchetta’s secretaries alerted authorities after accidentally finding sexually explicit images sent and received on Zanchetta’s cell phone. The complaint says that some of the images depict “young people” having sex in addition to lewd images of Zanchetta.
The report says three of Zanchetta’s vicars general and two monsignors made a formal internal complaint before the Argentinian nunciature in 2016, alleging inappropriate behavior with seminarians, such as encouraging them to drink alcohol and favoring more the more “graceful” (attractive) among them.
Pope Francis summoned Zanchetta to Rome for five days in October 2015. The pope appeared to have accepted Zanchetta’s excuse that his cell phone had been hacked, and dismissed the allegations.
The 2017 internal accusation, which The Tribune says alleged more explicit abuse by Zanchetta of seminarians, resulted in Zanchetta’s exit from the diocese, though Zanchetta said he was resigning for health reasons. The Vatican did not open an investigation at that time.
Manzano said part of the reason the allegations against Zanchetta may have not been taken seriously by the Vatican was because of the bishop’s close relationship with Pope Francis, who appointed him bishop of Orán in 2013. Still, Manzano said he didn’t believe the Vatican meant to lie or hide anything about Zanchetta. He said he believed Francis and other Vatican officials had also been victims of the bishop’s “manipulation.”
The current Bishop of Orán is in the process of collecting testimonies regarding allegations against Zanchetta, which will be sent to the Congregation for Bishops. Zanchetta is on a leave of absence while the investigation takes place.
Vatican Press Office spokesman Alessandro Gisotti in January “resolutely” repeated a Vatican statement that said no sexual abuse charges had yet emerged against the bishop at the time Pope Francis appointed Zanchetta his position at the APSA. Gisotti said the charges only emerged in the fall of 2018.
When asked at a Feb. 24 press conference about Zachetta’s case, Gisotti reiterated that an investigation was ongoing.
Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, the Vatican’s sexual abuse prosecutor and adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told reporters that he did not know any specifics about Zanchetta case, but that “if someone is investigating a case, that’s not covering it up.”
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Avalanche of Evidence is largely hyperbole in court cases shouted out by attorneys to impress juries. With Bishop Zanchetta it’s been pouring in like a relentless flood. By this juncture shouldn’t those who read and follow events realize the Pontiff figures sin “below the belt”, as he names it are rather irrelevant when compared with climate change, population control, plastic straws floating on the seas? The pattern is so evident perhaps minds are numbed by incredulity. So I figure it’s worthwhile to continue addressing the reality if only incredulity for some becomes conviction. Or at least reasonable certitude since conviction is either reasonably purchased or absolute. Who of us possesses absolute certitude? Hope remains and denial is sinful. Even the slimmest of possibilities we hope remains that our Pontiff awakens from slumber. But then realism demands we consider that appearance of slumber is actually appearance.
I am not clear on the Bishop’s day in court. Was he convicted by a court of law or “chastised” by the Vatican? Like Cardinal Pell, Bishop Zanchetta is considered innocent until proven guilty by a civil court.
Zanchetta could have and should have been investigated by a Church Canon Law process, and he wasn’t.
That’s the real problem. If our only standard is secular courts, then the Church is amoral and can just sell the real estate and quit pretending it follows Jesus.
Although the two cases are entirely different Cardinal Pell was suddenly charged with allegations made decades past soon after he exposed Vatican financial corruption was apparently unjustly convicted, news just broke of his conviction-you are correct.