Abuser Father Grassi, defended by Pope Francis seeks parole
Father Grassi requested parole after serving half of his sentence
The clergyman was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the crime of abuse of minors who were part of his foundation "Felices los Niños".
After having served half of his prison sentence for the crime of aggravated sexual abuse of minors, Father Julio César Grassi requested the benefit of parole from the Oral Criminal Court No. 1 of Morón. According to the sentence, the accused should remain in prison until 30 May 2028.
As a result of the request, the plaintiff lawyer, Juan Pablo Gallego, said that this meant "a strong blow to the victims" by explaining that the fact that he does not comply with the number of years agreed by the judges "is to overshadow the act of justice that involved validating the truth of the victims".
In this way, the representative of the Committee for the Follow-up and Implementation of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child in Argentina (Casacidn) remarked that his "opposition to the benefit that Grassi is seeking is categorical and we have made this clear to the Court". At the same time, he pointed out that they had not yet been notified by the courts.
In an interview with Télam, Gallego warned that "freeing Grassi before his sentence expires would constitute an international scandal", after recalling that the sentence handed down to the founder of the Felices los Niños Foundation was an important milestone in the fight against paedophilia and pederasty within the Catholic Church.
The conviction against the media priest was announced on June 10, 2009, when the TOC N°1 of Morón sentenced him to 15 years in prison for the crimes of sexual abuse aggravated by exercising the role of priest, being in charge of the education and guardianship of the minor victim.
According to the court ruling, this act was repeated on two occasions in real competition with each other, because the minors concerned attended between November and December 1996 at the Felices los Niños Foundation in Hurlingham, a town located in the western part of the province of Buenos Aires.
However, Grassi's sentence was submitted for review on 28 June 2022, because it was supposed to end on 7 August 2026, but a miscalculation in the sentence and the inapplicability of the benefit known as "2x1″ meant that it was extended for two more years, that is, until 30 May 2028.
Since the priest's case became known throughout the country in 2002, some 66 religious were denounced for abuse, but none would have an effective sentence for the facts they are accused of. An investigation by the national news agency noted that only three of those listed were sanctioned by the religious leadership by being expelled from the priesthood.
Despite this, the lawyer representing the network of Survivors of Ecclesiastical Abuse, Carlos Lombardi, criticised the meeting they had at the Vatican as "an act", pointing out that "they talk about the same old measures, but then they do nothing". For this reason, the lawyer said that for there to be real justice for the victims, the bishops should be "willing to give up their privileges and hand over abusers to civil justice".
"As long as priests continue to judge priests, nothing changes", the defender reproached, judging that "Pope Francis' attitude is one of tremendous cowardice, he refuses to give a face-to-face debate with the victims and they will only listen to a video". In contrast, the Supreme Pontiff described abuse within the ecclesiastical sphere as "an urgent challenge of our time", having created the Anti-Paedophilia Summit which was in charge of the three expulsions at the request of the Argentinean representative Monsignor Oscar Ojea.
However, the organisation was embroiled in a scandal after the religious leader appointed the Bishop of the Salta city of Oran, Gustavo Zanchetta, as an advisor to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), because the priest began to be investigated in January this year for "sexual abuse and other improper behaviour".
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