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This is the first case where a priest is arrested and brought to justice since last May, Pope Francis took corrective measures after the scandal engendered by the hiding of pedophile priests in the US. Chilean Church.
Justice has made a serious setback to the Catholic Church, punctuated by numerous pedophilia scandals, with the order of preventive detention of the priest Óscar Muñoz Toledo (56 years old), accused of stalking. sexual abuse and rape of at least seven minors.
Muñoz was transferred to the city of Rancagua (120 km south of Santiago), where a court ordered preventive detention for 180 days during the course of the investigation.
"Pre-trial detention is a very serious measure, which means the total deprivation of liberty of a person," said Emiliano Arias, prosecutor of Rancagua, after concluding the hearing of Muñoz's charges.
Arias presented the cases of five minors, allegedly abused by Muñoz, while two others are being evaluated. The crimes, which according to the prosecutor have not yet prescribed, cover the period 2002-2018 and would have been recorded in Santiago and Rancagua.
The victims were between 11 and 17 years old: five abused children are nephews of the religious, another corresponds to one of his acolytes and the rest is a young man who was abused in Rancagua in 2004. [19659002] Muñoz, a renowned 56-year-old priest who held positions of responsibility at the Archbishop's Palace of Santiago for seven years and right and direct advisor According to Arias, the cardinal of the capital, Ricardo Ezzati, will be liable to 39, a term of imprisonment of up to 15 years.
Muñoz will remain in a prison cell in Rancagua, separated from the rest of the prison population to avoid being attacked. nature of accusations
there was self-denunciation
The priest announced on January 2 – weeks before the visit of Pope Francis in Chile – for at least two cases of abuse or in front of his for which he was suspended from office and his case was handed over to the Vatican Congregation of the Faith, which investigates cases of pedophilia.
The details of Muñoz's abuses were revealed after the case was one of the files seized by the Chilean prosecutor's office during a surprise operation that took place in the offices of the archbishop's houses in Santiago and of Rancagua on June 13th. 19659002] In 2011, while he was vice-chancellor of the archdiocese, he supported the statements of the accusers of the case of the influential priest Fernando Karadima, suspended for life by the Vatican in 2013 for pedophilia.
the archdiocese of Santiago, had access to records of sexual complaints and knew the treatment of canonical investigations within the Catholic Church, which, according to the Office of the Prosecutor, would have allowed him to " reduce the profile "of pedophilia cases
" Therefore, there is an important factor of impunity that the same subject was seeking for himself and it is likely that for other cases ", stated Arias.
The course that the Muñoz case took caused "a very great pain" inside the Chilean Church, according to Cardinal Ezzati, who also confirmed that the prosecutor's office again made a seizure in Archbishopric of Santiago, parallel to the arrest of the priest. ❧
in figures
34
The bishops, members of the Chilean Episcopal Conference, offered their offices to Pope Francis.
7
are children abused by Muñoz, although it is suspected that they could be more.
Seizure of the Office of the Prosecutor revealed what happened
- In June of this year, the Office of the Prosecutor ordered the seizure of documents and computers in the diocese of Rancagua and in the Ecclesiastical Court in Santiago.
- This diligence sought to find canonical records and antecedents related to denunciations that designated a group of priests from the O. Higgins area and that they incorporated a fraternity of naming abusers & # 39; 39; The Family & # 39 ;, case in which fourteen priests were suspended. Here, the case of Muñoz Toledo has been learned
- The Office of the Prosecutor is also investigating the possible actions of other religious "as the perpetrators, accomplices or accessories in this case as well as in d & # 39; other business "in Rancagua
- . of pedophilia involving more than a dozen priests from the city of Rancagua, who are suspended and also under investigation of the church.
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