The protected priest. Grassi's abuses: twenty years of the case that Bergoglio tried to cover up and could not.

A young man told for the first time on a television programme how Julio César Grassi had sexually abused him. The media priest, who knew how to take advantage of the benefits of the system under President Menem, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexual abuse. Although today he spends his days in a common prison, he did not cease to receive protection from the Church which, to this day, continues to cover up for her sexual criminals.

A few days after taking office as head of the Catholic Church, Jorge Bergoglio affirmed that he would not take "one step back" in relation to "those problems" because "you don't play with children". Faced with the public notoriety that sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic Church around the world was gaining, Bergoglio tried to cover up the responsibility of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the cover-up of abusers with some reforms. Many of these criminals continue to enjoy the protection of the Vatican. One of them is Julio César Grassi.

The media priest

Julio César Grassi flirted with power from the beginning of his priestly career. Under the Presidency of Carlos Menem, and thanks to his links with the then Minister of Economy Domingo Cavallo, in 1993 he obtained a "subsidy" of five million dollars and the donation of 65 hectares in the town of Hurlingham. There he built what would become his empire and his downfall: the Felices Los Niños Foundation.

With the foundation as an excuse, Grassi built great links with the political and business elite of the Menemism. Money from Eduardo Duhalde, Bunge & Born, Amalita Fortabat, Bernardo Neustadt and even Susana Giménez went into the coffers of the foundation, which were the coffers of the priest Grassi himself. It was common to see him going around the television channels leading campaigns for donations, to sustain a system of 17 homes distributed throughout the country through which around 6,000 children passed.

This would not have been possible without the approval of the bishopric of Morón, led by the controversial Monsignor Justo Laguna, a leading figure of the 1990s. The same bishop who boasted of being progressive and at the same time extolled his friendship with the abuser Grassi, whom he even visited in prison. However, those same television cameras that praised him for his "solidarity work", dug the well into which Grassi's kingdom began to sink.

Abuses

Grassi's name began to be associated with crimes of sexual abuse in 1991 and 2000 when, in those years, the first complaints were filed against him, both in the courts of Mercedes and Morón. As was to be expected, none of the cases progressed.

On 23 October 2002, an investigation by journalist Miriam Lewin was presented on "Telenoche Investiga". The report, under the title "Con los chicos, no" (Not with the children), reported on repeated sexual abuses allegedly committed by the priest against young people interned in the Felices los Niños Foundation. In this programme, one of his victims, known under the pseudonym Gabriel, told how he had been forced to have sex with the priest when he was only 15 years old.

It was one of the first times that sexual abuse by a member of the Catholic Church was reported in the mass media. Threats, discrediting and intimidation of the victims and witnesses of the case, as well as of the journalists who carried out the investigation, soon followed; something that would become a constant feature of the detractors of a backward and authoritarian church. Grassi roamed the channels while his victims and whistleblowers had to hide for fear of reprisals.

In 2008 came the oral trial and in 2009 Grassi was sentenced to 15 years by the Court N°1 of Morón. One of the reasons for the delay of the sentence was related to the strong power behind his defence. The accusation against one of the main media figures of the Catholic Church was not going to pass just like that.

Juan Pablo Gallego, one of the prosecuting lawyers together with Sergio Piris, had denounced that "Grassi is not an ordinary person, he has enormous power, more than 25 private defence lawyers, the most important law firms in the country have joined forces to defend him".

Within this fierce defence of the abuser priest was none other than Jorge Bergoglio, the current Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. Bergoglio was the head of the Church in Argentina and head of the country's Episcopal Conference while Grassi was denounced and condemned in the first instance by the courts.

Although Francis never made any public pronouncements about his position on the Grassi case, he did participate in his defence through the Episcopal Conference, which was responsible for writing four books: "Studies on the Grassi case", "Studies on the Grassi case", "Studies on the Grassi case", "Studies on the Grassi case", "Studies on the Grassi case" and "Studies on the Grassi case". a critical analysis of the Grassi dossier covering more than 2,600 pages. Books dedicated to refute each of the victims' stories and show an innocent Grassi.

Grassi was granted house arrest in a country house called La Blanquita, right across the street from the foundation. It was only in 2013 that the Buenos Aires Supreme Court upheld the sentence and the court ordered his arrest. In 2017, the Supreme Court of the Nation confirmed the sentence and the paedophile priest was transferred to Unit N°41 in Campana, where he remains to this day.

At the same time, Grassi was denounced and convicted for embezzlement of funds from donations received by the foundation. At the point of greatest perversion, it became known that Grassi diverted part of these donations, which were foodstuffs, to the prison.

However, Grassi is still a priest. He celebrates Mass every Sunday in the Campana prison ward, which has almost become his parish. He says that the Church did not let go of his hand. Something that is true.

From the denunciation against Grassi until today, all over the world, the cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church have come to light exponentially thanks to the enormous courage of the victims, to the point of having a pontiff who ruled on the number of denunciations and a film was awarded an Oscar. But, at the same time, Jorge Bergoglio, who is presented as one of the greatest fighters against abuse, is one of the biggest cover-ups of abusive priests. In this newspaper we have denounced his close ties with the ex-bishop Gustavo Zanchetta from Salta, whom he not only protected by taking him to the Vatican but also sent advisors to defend him in the trial that condemned him.

The Grassi case shows how the structure devised by the Vatican itself and perfected over decades guarantees impunity for these aberrant cases that continue to come to light. Impunity aggravated by the close relationship that the Catholic Church continues to maintain with a state that continues to finance it.

Source