The prosecutor of Colombia investigates 57 cases of pedophilia in the Catholic Church

In Colombia, there are currently 57 investigations against priests of the Catholic Church for badual badault of minors at the prosecutor's office, as he knew Blu Radio. The last known case was that of four victims in Cali for which the archbishop of the city should have asked for a public pardon.

Surveys are related to the events that occurred between 2002 and 2018, according to the figures provided by the accuser at the station. The majority of the cases are concentrated in the Antioquia Department (26.3%), the rest are distributed in 18 other regions of the country.

The majority (71.1%) of these investigations are under litigation or investigation, so that a sentence of conviction has not yet been pronounced. But the statistics show a dark image for the victims who dare denounce the high institution of Catholicism. Well, few cases lead to justice.

According to the known figures of Blu Radio, e13.3% of the proceedings were suspended due to lack of evidence to convict the priests involved. And only 4.4% of the charges of raping minors were acquitted. Until the moment only 11.1% had a conviction.

The last case of pedophilia in Colombia was that of four children, including two brothers, who decided to denounce William de Jesús Mazo, parish priest of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria in the district Alfonso Bonilla Aragón, in the modest district of Aguablanca, east of Cali, who badually abused them in 2009.

A Mazo priest was convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison, the highest sentence ever imposed on a priest accused of pedophilia in Colombia. The 22nd Circuit Criminal Court also ordered the archdiocese of Cali to publicly apologize to the victims, aged between 20 and 22, for the violations and the pain.

Ten years after the crimes and the legal struggles, the archbishop of Cali, Dario de Jesus Monsalve, presided a mbad accompanied by 90 priests for the families of the victims, who decided not to attend the ceremony because this Was not the remedy that they expected. They argue that the pardon offered was due to an obligation and not a real intention to cure the injuries caused.

As he explains to the newspaper The weather The four victims' lawyer, Elmer Montaña, the children and their families suffered persecution from the church during the decade that lasted the judicial process. First, he mentions that the church's argument was still that the children had been lying because of the poor education they had received from their parents and that they were vicious, and although it has been proven otherwise, they have never asked for forgiveness for these statements.

In addition, the lawyer told the national newspaper that the church had arranged for a psychologist to question the victims and threatened them not to continue the process. "I told them that the process was a crusade against the church, that they were going to win hell, that they were in the hands of an atheist lawyer, (. ..) that they were going to lose the case and that they would end up in jail, "says the mountain.

The lawyer says that there are at least 20 other victims of the priest Mazo, but they decided not to denounce for fear of reprisals. And he denounced Archbishop Monsalve who had offered him money to abandon the cases. "The church is defending itself more as a company that defends its reputation and tries not to damage its reputation than a church interested in exterminating pedophilia," he explained. The weather.

Montaña also told the national newspaper that because of the persecution, the families had to leave the neighborhood, there remains only one because they have their own home. Regarding the victims, he said that one works as a messenger in Ecuador, another studies in Pasto, another works as a subcontractor at Cali City Hall and another did not overcome his emotional problems in because of the mistreatment he suffered.