They are Argentinian and have been abused by priests: "If the pope wanted to change something, he should throw it in the trash" – 23/02/2019

Mailin cries. He's still crying. He is 31 years old. The priest ill-treated him a long time ago. He remembers scenes, some clear, others blurred. There are days when new situations come up, something brings them to your head. He has not healed yet. He wonders if the day will come when it will happen.

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Mailín Gobbo is not alone. Julieta Añazco at the bar table, abused by another priest. And Gabriel Cuesta, for another. At a nearby table, there are two compañeras, also mistreated, but not by the priests. They are all part of the Campaign against the prescription of crimes of badual violencewho seeks to equate them with torture. But there is also the Network of Ecclesiastical Sexual Abuse Survivors in Argentina, with a hundred throughout the country. Only in the network, they carry 40 cases of abusive remedies.

Both of them are wary of what is happening these days at the summit on badual abuse of the Church at the Vatican. "If Francisco really wanted to change things, he would have thrown out all the abusive priests already sentenced.Some examples are given: Jorge Grbadi, sentenced to 15 years in prison for serious badual abuse and corruption of children, Felices los Niños Foundation in 2009, Justo José Ilarraz sentenced to 25 years in prison for mistreatment and corruption of minors against seven children at the Notre-Dame seminary in Paraná, between 1985 and 1993; Christian Federico Von Wernich, sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, Juan Diego Escobar Gaviria, sentenced to 25 years in prison for badual abuse and corruption of minors against at least four children from his parish.

For a long time, Mailin could not wash without flip flops. They reminded him that in the camps, the priest Carlos José put his hand under the net to touch him. He does not like the kisses that touch his neck or the caresses. Carlos José did all this when she went to confession. The abuses occurred at the San José Obrero School of Caseros. He does not know when they started. Maybe in kindergarten.

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At age 12, her mother found her diary. "I want Jesus to take me to heaven," he wrote. Her mother took her to a psychologist. He went to several therapists. He had cysts everywhere. "The body is talking to you," says one of them. As a teenager, he began to get drunk, to have violent relationships. At age 20, a therapist managed to put the scenes back in his head. Mailín told her parents that they had gone to confront the priest: "I did not do anything, she was affectionate with me," replied Carlos José. His parents denounced him to the bishopric of San Martín. Nothing has happened. At 27, Mailín had a daughter and the images came back to her head. This time, she had to denounce it herself at the police station of Tres de Febrero's wife. The case was brought before an attorney's office, where there were more complaints against Carlos Jose, who was arrested. He is now at the Mayor of José León Suárez. The case was raised at trial.

Abuses at Gabriel Cuesta were committed between 1972 and 1976. They started at the age of 9 at the San Rafael School of Villa Devoto and he participated in the Catholic Action Group. Priest Abelardo Silva befriends his family and regards him as one of his "favorites". He began to kiss her, then asked him to bad and he continued, more and more. He came back from a camp with a boxer with poop, for fear. "He put me in a place of submission, I was very young, if your father is a hero at this age, a priest is God." At 15, Silva is sent to Chaco. Gabriel spoke of the abuse to another priest. He told her that it was good, to forget that.

Gabriel became a priest: "It was like a Stockholm syndrome, I was captive." He spent a year as cloistered monk at Entre Ríos, then at Morón, Castelar, Haedo. He says that at that time he was handled as much as possible by Bishop Laguna. Years later, when he left his habits, Gabriel denounced him. Silva too. Cardinal Poli told him to shut up: "The one who is going to look bad, like a man, is you." Today, both are dead. "It was a long process, you first have to be a victim, then you talk and you're a survivor, I'm now an activist," says Gabriel, who spent two years in a deep depression following which he had psychiatric treatment.

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Julieta Añazco was attacked by the priest Héctor Giménez in the summer camps where she went at the age of 10, 11 and 12 years. He was able to denounce him 30 years later, when he saw him give Mbad and everything came back to his memory. It was in 2013. At Prosecutor's Office No. 6 of La Plata, he discovered that Giménez had received complaints from three men and five women who had been abused in their childhood. He was sentenced to eight years, but the appeal court of La Plata excarched for "ecclesiastical dignity". He now lives in a retirement home. "It hurts me a lot to know that many children come to this house to visit their grandparents, and he is there. "says Julieta, who at age 46 continues to "heal" and "fight". He now demands, like his companions, that these causes do not prescribe.

The survivor network deals with 40 cases of abusive treatment. "This is the tip of the iceberg, there are many more, it's a puzzle, there are 24 judicial powers in the country, and there are priests who were denounced only in canonical headquarters, "says lawyer Carlos Lombardi," and the canonical process is detrimental to the victims, does not allow them to participate in the trial or to appoint a defense lawyer The Committee of United Nations human rights recommended to the Holy See to change its legal standards, but the pope continues to keep the pontifical secret. The ideal is to make the denunciation to the ordinary justice. The problem is that in general, the answer is that the crime prescribed. "

"There is no reliable database on the number of abusive cures in Argentina, but more than a hundred have been reported," he said. Clarin Julián Maradeo, author of the book The plot behind badual abuse and crimes in the Catholic Church. And unlike what happens in the United States, Chile or Spain, in Argentina, the Catholic hierarchy reacts only after a public scandal. This is due to the fact that neither ordinary justice nor governments order dioceses to open their archives. There is no correlation between the resonant words of Pope Francis and the facts. "

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Liliana Rodríguez is a psychologist from the Survivors Network: "The hiding that the church does not help people to talk. The fact that there is no debugging of the attackers withdraws and does not allow to speak. To speak is fundamental. That is the psychic pain of a person who has been abused trying to tell this part of his story, but it is impossible because it always reappears as symptoms, she gets sick, she has anguish, dreams , uncontrollable nightmares. Speak in good health. And the big difference we have is that we believe the victims, which is the first step for them to trust and heal. "

"More than a top against pedophilia, it's a hiding top"

Fabián Schunk was one of the victims of Ilarraz. Later, he was one of his whistleblowers and is today a reference of the Network of Ecclesiastical Sexual Abuse Survivors in Argentina, where there are increasing denunciations and stories of abuse.

Schunk spent twelve years at the Paraná seminary where Ilarraz waited until midnight to insult the boys for whom he was responsible: "At night, a gurí cried and you thought he was missing, but they l & rsquo; Abused. " Schunk was a priest, he served for a few years and he left his habit. He is married. It's his wife who helped him denounce Ilarraz.

-The historical moment, the context, allow to speak more, to have more complaints?

– There has been an evolution in terms of rights in the broad sense. Today, society no longer tolerates some previously authorized problems. It started with Grbadi. It was debunked that there were untouchable people. And the hiding of the church has been unmasked. He also broke with the prescription barrier. And that helped a lot of denunciations in the United States. In Argentina, we still need a lot. The state must not allow the church to judge these crimes, because ecclesiastical courts, instead of condemning abusive priests, silence the victims.

– What do you think of the summit happening in the Vatican?

-I think that more than a summit against pedophilia is a top of disguise, because if we refer to what happened in Argentina, we must say that all those who were named, denounced and condemned and even those who strongly condemn the abusers and their accessories are always priests, they always have charges, they are always transferred from one place to another. For us, this summit leaves no hope. In addition, the pope asked the bishops and cardinals of the world who were going to attend this summit to meet before the victims of their country. Here in Argentina, we do not know that they have encountered victims. I do not know what is the opinion, the voice that leads from Argentina to the Vatican, it is surely not the voice of the victims.

– Has the Church taken steps to prevent or remedy these abuses?

Victims who have been abused by priests have been abandoned and still are. The churches, the bishoprics, have not supported the psychological accompaniment that implies, they are victims of a church that abuses and hides them.

– Do you have any idea how many people may have been abused by priests in Argentina?

-From the day when the bishop of Paraná, Juan Alberto Puiggari, at a meeting of priests eager to denigrate the violence against Ilarraz, said "there are not fifty people like say the media, but at most, it will be about fourteen, fifteen ", according to me I do not like talking about numbers, because a victim is as serious as fifty.