Bishop convicted of abuse released from house arrest to travel to Rome for medical treatment. Why could this treatment not be provided in Argentina?

Article in the Argentinian press in November.  One wonders where Father Zanchetta is now and has he met the Pope since arriving in Rome?

The National Survivors Network repudiated the judicial decision in favor of Zanchetta

Bishop convicted of sexual abuse is traveling to Rome

The permission would have been granted two weeks ago but it was known yesterday. It transpired that it was granted to him by the Court of Appeals so that he could receive treatment for health ailments, but there is still no official information.

Bishop Emeritus Gustavo Zanchetta, convicted of sexual abuse of two former seminarians from Orán, interrupted his house arrest to travel to Rome. The permission was granted to him by the Court of Appeals, according to reports, so that he could undergo medical treatment.

The news was revealed by journalist José Corbacho. There was no official communication of this decision by the Judiciary. Salta/12 requested more information on the matter but has not yet had access.

Zanchetta was sentenced on March 4, 2022 by Chamber II of the Orán Trial Court, composed of Judge María Laura Toledo Zamora and Judges Raúl Fernando López and Héctor Fabián Fayos, to four years and six months of effective imprisonment for the crime of continued simple sexual abuse aggravated by being committed by a minister of religious worship, to the detriment of two former seminarians.

However, four months later, the prelate obtained the benefit of house arrest, which was granted to him by the same court that sentenced him. Zanchetta's lawyer, Darío Palmier, had pointed out that his client was in a "delicate state of health." The religious man was hospitalized for more than a month in a private clinic where he was admitted due to a spike in hypertension. He was then transferred to the Nuestra Señora del Valle Monastery to continue with house arrest.

This time, it transpired that Zanchetta requested permission to undergo medical treatment or surgery in the Italian capital. Initially, the trial court that sentenced him rejected this request. The defense appealed this decision and the Court of Appeals ended up giving him permission to leave the country.

Former seminarian Kevin Montes, representative of the National Network of Survivors of Ecclesiastical Sexual Abuse in Salta, said that Zanchetta had been in Rome for two weeks, according to information provided to him by a canonical source.

Montes was a key witness in the trial against Zanchetta; although he did not denounce him, he said that he was also one of his victims. "We repudiate what the court, the judges, the prosecutors, just did with Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta. He has been in Rome for two weeks. For what? Why? How? If he is condemned. Although there was never a firm sentence, he was condemned," he said.

"He was in a convent with all the benefits and privileges that any other ordinary citizen who has been convicted does not have. Why did he leave? Who authorizes all this? Bishop Luis Antonio Scozzina, perhaps? Who pays the funds for this trip? The Church? Who pays for it? Could it be Pope Francis himself? Or perhaps the lady who goes to Mass every Sunday and puts in her last 100 pesos, her last two coins?" Montes speculated.

He also stressed that it is not known what illness the bishop emeritus will be treated for in Rome. "Nobody is clear about all this. Neither the justice system nor the diocesan Church of Orán," he reproached.

The judicial decision is being questioned due to the lack of information and because it was not explained why Zanchetta's illness could not be treated by doctors in Argentina.

"As a Network, we demand a response from the survivors of Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta," said Montes, who recalled that the bishop emeritus is "a very close friend of Pope Francis." The request for information has been publicly addressed to Bishop Scozzina and the judges involved.

"Later, we heard Pope Francis say 'zero tolerance,' issuing a statement that there will be no tolerance for priests who have been convicted. There is talk of removing their clerical status, and what about Zanchetta?" Montes also questioned.

In this context, the representative of the Survivors Network invited those who have been victims of ecclesiastical sexual abuse, and who have not yet reported it, to do so before the ordinary courts and not in the ecclesiastical courts. He recalled the pressure he experienced from the Church itself when he denounced the priest Carlos Fernando Páez for this same crime, although he also expressed his distrust in the decisions of judicial officials: "I do not want Páez to have the same privileges that Zanchetta has today in a few months," he said.

Source

Some very revealing background about the Modernist Mutual Admiration and Protection Society