Abuse victim of Pope's friend demands police protection

A priest from Salta will be tried for sexual abuse and they warn that the complainant "is in danger".

The date has been set for mid-May. The survivor is a former seminarian who denounced events that occurred between 2015 and 2017. He testified as a witness in another case in which a former bishop was convicted and had to move to another city.

Just the day after the provincial elections in Salta, on 15 May, the trial against Carlos Fernando Páez, a priest accused of having sexually abused Kevin Montes a former seminarian between 2015 and 2017, kicks off. Thirty-three witnesses will testify during three days of hearings. Organisations of survivors of abuse by members of the Catholic Church are calling for the physical protection of the complainant and his family, while warning of possible irregularities in the process. In Salta, three priests have already been charged with sexual crimes.

The victim, who is now 26 years old, recounted for the first time the scenes of violence he experienced while he was a seminarian in the Church. The solution offered to him by the Diocese of Oran was to change parish. Montes accepted, but his career in the institution meant that two years later he met Paez again.

In 2019, Montes filed a criminal and canonical complaint. The crime against the former priest is simple sexual abuse doubly aggravated for having been committed by a recognised minister of worship and in charge of education. Paéz was a priest in the parish of La Santa Cruz, in Villa Saavedra, Tartagal, which depends on the Diocese of Orán. The Bishop of Oran, Luis Scozzina, suspended Paéz from the priesthood in August. He was also expelled from the Parish of Nuestra Señora de la Merced de La Unión, where he resided.

The complainant retired from religious life permanently four years ago, in 2019. Organisations of survivors of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church claim that he is in danger. After formalising the complaint, Paez's victim received threats and pressure from the alleged abuser and the former bishop of Oran, Gustavo Zanchetta. Zanchetta was a priest close to Francis. The Pope had appointed him as an adviser to the Holy See's financial administration office until he was denounced in Salta for sexual abuse and abuse of power. He was convicted last year after the courts proved that he abused two former seminarians. The sentence? Four years' house arrest in a monastery for "retired priests" because of his "delicate state of health". Zanchetta is 59 years old. Diagnosis: hypertension.

Why are they asking for guarantees to physically protect the complainant? Paez's victim testified as a witness in the trial against Zanchetta. The trial against Paez starts immediately the day after the provincial elections, so there will be no media coverage to make the case visible, to somehow "protect" the victim. There is more. The prosecutor who was assigned to carry out the investigation to bring the case to trial was Paez's catechist, so she withdrew from the case. But it was her husband who was appointed to the Fiscal Unit that investigated the case. The complainant had to move from Tartagal to Córdoba because of the re-victimisation to which he was subjected for denouncing the priest. He asked for the trial to be held in the capital of the province, but his request was denied.

In addition to Zanchetta, the former priest Agustín Rosa Torino was sentenced for sexual abuse to twelve years in prison after it was proven that he abused two young girls and a former nun. The events occurred between 2009 and 2012 at the Instituto Hermanos Discípulos de Jesús de San Juan Bautista, founded by the convicted priest himself. He was convicted in 2021 and the sentence was confirmed the following year, as the former priest appealed the court's decision.

"I ask the judges to handle this case responsibly because these things should no longer happen in the Church. In my Diocese these abuses continue to happen and as they happen in my diocese they happen all over the world", Kevin Montes told elDiarioAR in an interview.

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