LGBT activist dances and strips in atrium of Catholic cathedral

Mexico City, Mexico, Feb 22, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The Church in Mexico has expressed its support for several bills to eliminate the statute of limitations for the sexual abuse of minors, which stands now at ten years. The bills were introduced in the country’s Federal Congress and would only apply to future, not past cases. 

The Mexican bishops do not anticipate that reported abuse cases will be comparable in number to those seen by the Church in the United States, and the Church in Mexico has not seen lawsuits filed on a comparable level.

Speaking to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner, Bishop Alfonso Miranda Guardiola, secretary general of the Mexican bishops’ conference, said the country’s bishops support lawmakers’ efforts to eliminate the statute of limitations for the sexual abuse of minors and have been “respectfully proposing to members of the House and Senate to introduce this kind of proposal.”

“These new legislative proposals are a good thing for the nation,” he said, since “they are legal instruments to take actions, correct, eradicate the evil, care for the victims and prosecute the perpetrators,” Miranda said.

Mexico’s House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill Feb. 6.  That bill would the Federal Criminal Code to sanction public officials who “cover up” the sexual abuse of minors. Anyone found guilty would be expelled from office and barred from holding public office in the future. 

The bill also eliminates the statute of limitations for public officials and has been sent on to the Senate for approval. 

Various legislators have also filed bills to eliminate the statute of limitations for pedophilia, including  pro-life senator Lilly Téllez, a member of President López Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement Party (Morena). 

Téllez posted on Twitter that her proposal also seeks to double the sentence for child abusers with a close relationship to the victim. 

The senator’s bill also states that abusers “lose any legal rights he or she has with the victim” and that “local legislatures would have to adjust their laws to comply with the aims of the initiative.”

Bishop Miranda called the sexual abuse of minors “a cancer worldwide” and said it occurs in the Church as well as “in the family, in one’s own home, in education, sports, the arts, and many other environments.” 

“When an abuser does not face a civil criminal trial, possible new victims are put at risk, inside or outside the Church,” Miranda said.

Noting that a canonical trial can result in the laicization of an abuser priest, Miranda said that, if the statute of limitations prevents civil authorities from acting, the perpetrator “goes free with the possibility of getting into school or work environments etc. and putting new victims at risk.”

“We are very pleased with the progress these bills are making in the legislatures ,” Miranda said, “and reiterated that “those changes will help protect children, avoid abuse by whoever — a priest or in the family or school environment — and contribute to the healthy development of children.

A version of the story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jun 5, 2019 / 12:40 am (CNA).- The bishops’ conference of Argentina has said it is examining and will respond to a new report of more than 60 allegations of sexual abuse by priests and religious in the country.

Officials with the conference said they are working on new protocols and actions to protect minors, following the Vatican summit on the topic earlier this year.

A recent report in La Nación detailed 63 cases of alleged sexual abuse by priests and religious of the Church in Argentina in the last two decades. Of these cases, 17 resulted in convictions, 22 are in judicial process, 24 were not prosecuted and 12 led to dismissal from the clerical state.

Among the cases mentioned are those of Juan Escobar Gaviria, who is now serving a 25-year prison sentence; Nicola Corradi, accused of abusing hearing impaired minors at the Próvolo Institute; and Gustavo Zanchetta, the bishop emeritus of Orán and adviser to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy Apostolic See since December 2017, who is under investigation at the Vatican for alleged sexual abuse and the abuse of power.

In their report, La Nación says that the Church in Argentina “for years covered up its priests and religious accused of sexual abuse” through a system of transferring them to new assignments rather than removing them from ministry.

Bishop Sergio Buenanueva of San Francisco warned in a statement that transferring priests accused of sexual abuse was a “habitual” and “totally fatal” practice.

“There is a sick system in the Church that covered up, or inhibited the abuses from coming to light and it ended up favoring the perpetrator,” said Buenanueva, who serves as coordinator of the Pastoral Council for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Adults of the Argentine Bishops’ Conference.

The prelate said they are in the process of making a complete list of the cases, “as other episcopates have done.”

Buenanueva told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, that the bishops’ conference will take “a few days to assess and evaluate” the report.

In March, during the 117th plenary assembly of the Argentine Bishops’ Conference, the bishops called for “a radical break” with conditions of sexual abuse, the abuse of power, and cover up.

“We must renew at its roots the lifestyles and formation structures that have made it possible to create in some clerics a sense of superiority and dominion over the faithful and which have facilitated their living, as if they didn’t have to give an account of their actions to anyone, in a situation of veritable impunity,” said the Bishop Oscar Ojea of San Isidro, president of the Argentine Bishops’ Conference.

Last month, Pope Francis signed the motu propio Vos estis lux mundi (You are the light of the world), which establishes new procedures to prevent and report cases of sexual abuse within the Church.

The norms establish obligatory reporting for clerics and religious, require that every diocese has a mechanism for reporting abuse, and put the metropolitan archbishop in charge of investigations of accusations against suffragan bishops.

The motu proprio also states that every diocese must create a stable mechanism or system through which people may submit reports of abuse or its cover-up. The exact form of the system, which could also be an entire office, will be left to the discretion of the individual diocese, but must be established by June 2020.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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ACI Prensa Staff, May 22, 2023 / 15:45 pm (CNA).
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