Chile. A priest accused of child abuse was found dead

SANTIAGO DE CHILE (AP) – A Chilean priest has investigated child abuse and presented his resignation to the president

dad Francisco

He was found dead at his home in the south of

Chile

and the police regard suicide as the cause of their death.

Father Francisco Núñez Calisto was the subject of an investigation for alleged badault on minors, confirmed today the Chilean police and published on his website the Archbishopric of Puerto Montt (located more than 1,000 kilometers south of Santiago), to which the small town of Calbuco belonged. where Núñez Calisto had practiced the profession of priest.

The priest of the parish was found dead at his home last night in a town in Puerto Montt, after his relatives went to the scene, knowing nothing about him and answering his calls only several days later.

Once all the rigorous procedures and investigative work have been developed, "it can be established that no third party intervenes in the death of this man, who presents sharp wounds showing a link to a self-perpetrating death. inflicted, particularly a suicide with a cutting weapon, "said Commissioner Franco Cardenas, the homicide squad of the Puerto Montt investigative police.

The authorities claimed that it was expected that the legal medical service will conduct an autopsy to confirm this version.

"At the end of last year, I received two people who delivered me and signed a letter that indicated inappropriate attitudes towards the priestly life in which Francisco Núñez Calisto, as far as young people are concerned, would be falls. the priest of the parish of Calbuco, "said in a statement on June 16 Cristián Caro, archbishop emeritus of Puerto Montt, informing that the priest had asked for the resignation of the priestly ministry.

Caro was one of the archbishops whose resignation had been accepted by Pope Francis on June 11th.

In another statement from the Archbishop of Puerto Montt on August 25, reporting on several investigations into human rights violations in the diocese, priest Nunez Calisto claimed that on July 16 he had been informed of the restriction of its public exercise and other precautionary measures, and that a prior investigation had been opened in September 2016.

It was also said that, at the end of July, "the priest Nunez Calisto sent a letter to the Holy Father in which he asked to leave the ministry, and he delivered another letter in which he expressed his denial of the process he had begun. against him ".

Both documents were sent to the Holy See and the documents handed to the prosecution for the opening of the corresponding investigation were then reported.

AP attempted to contact the Archbishop of Puerto Montt to obtain more information about the aforementioned investigation, but received no response.

In Chile,

Catholic Church

lives the worst crisis in its history beleaguered by the impact of hundreds of cases of badual abuse of minors by priests and church-related people who are the object of. an investigation by the Vatican, as well as by the public prosecutor's office, which ended with the resignation of several of his bishops.