Catholics of the Diocese of Oran, Argentina, gathered in the city’s main square Tuesday and Wednesday (26 and 27 July 2022), protesting the decision to allow disgraced former Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta to serve his jail conviction in a retired priests’ home after the sexual abuse of seminarians.

Newsroom (30/07/2022 9:45 AM Gaudium Press) Despite his conviction and being sentenced to four and a half years in prison, Bishop Zanchetta has received no public sanction from the Church. The results of a canonical process initiated in 2019 have not been announced. On July 8, Zanchetta was released from prison on medical grounds to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest. He moved into the Monastery of Our Lady of the Valley in his former diocese. The monastery serves as a home for retired priests.

Background

Bp. Zanchetta’s case, and the lack of public action to censure him by the Vatican, has raised criticism from local Catholics and drawn international attention because of Pope Francis’ personal involvement in it.

The Bishop previously served as executive undersecretary of the Argentine bishops’ conference and had worked closely with then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who led the conference from 2005-2011. One of Pope Francis’ first episcopal appointments after his election in 2013 was to name Zanchetta as Bishop of Oran.

After Zanchetta resigned as diocesan Bishop in 2017, at the age of 53, Pope Francis created a special position for him in the Roman Curia, naming him assessor at the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), which functions as the Vatican’s sovereign wealth manager and government reserve bank. Zanchetta was also reported to live at the Domus Sanctae Marta, the Vatican hotel and retreat house where Pope Francis also lives.

Although Zanchetta initially cited “health reasons” for his resignation from the Oran diocese, several senior diocesan clergy have publicly stated that they presented allegations of sexual abuse by Zanchetta to Rome in 2015 and again in 2017. The Vatican has claimed it only received complaints of sexual abuse against Zanchetta in late 2018 — after he had resigned.

Those complaints led to the charges of “aggravated continuous sexual abuse” of two adult seminarians, for which Zanchetta was convicted in March of this year.

Despite the Vatican’s statement, a February 2019 report from The Tribune, a local newspaper, published documents allegedly illustrating Bp. Zanchetta’s crimes. The report included a formal complaint against Zanchetta by three of his diocesan vicars and two other senior diocesan priests, exposing that Pope Francis had summoned the Bishop to Rome to discuss the matter.

The Tribune also detailed other complaints against Zanchetta, including the seminary rector’s direct accusations of harassment of seminarians. The complaints were submitted via the apostolic nunciature in Buenos Aires in May and June 2017, before Zanchetta’s resignation for “health reasons.”

When the Vatican first acknowledged allegations of abuse against Zanchetta in 2019, it also announced the Bishop was taking a leave of absence from his position at APSA. Vatican officials also said that a canonical investigation was underway to examine the allegations against the Bishop — to date, the conclusions of that investigation have not been announced.

Zanchetta returned to Vatican work in early 2020, despite ongoing criminal and canonical investigations into the allegations against him, before finally leaving his role at APSA in June 2021 and returning to Argentina to stand trial earlier this year.

Zanchetta Convicted

On March 4, 2022, Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta was convicted of sexual abuse aggravated by his position as a minister of religion in a decision handed down by judges in his former diocese.

Initially set to begin in October, the trial was delayed four months at his attorney’s request while waiting for the files of the canonical process that Zanchetta is undergoing at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Vatican has not yet publicized any information regarding the canonical process and any determinations that have been reached regarding the former Bishop.

Zanchetta’s trial took place over three weeks. While the Bishop pled not guilty and maintained his innocence, victims and witnesses testified that in 2016, he abused seminarians at John XXIII Seminary and his residence.

In addition, according to testimony at trial, the Bishop serially pressured seminarians to engage in sexual conduct, displayed pornographic selfies and other images on his phone, and pressured seminarians for massages and other contacts while supplying them with alcohol.

Possible Retaliation

On Thursday, June 23, 2022, several Argentine outlets reported that Spanish canon lawyer Javier Belda Iniesta is now in Oran investigating the priests, deacons and seminarians who testified in the civil trial against the Bishop. Iniesta defended Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta during his ecclesiastical trial- a secret process, the results of which were not revealed.

The sole judge of Salta’s Ecclesiastical Tribunal, Loyola Pinto, confirmed that the appointment of Belda Iniesta came from the Vatican and Pope Francis.

Belda Iniesta has told local media that “there is nothing strange” about his appointment and stressed that his investigation was preliminary, intended only to establish if there is a minimal semblance of truth to some allegations. His investigation was not necessarily related to Zanchetta’s case.

The ongoing Protests

Protesters this week gathered signatures against the decision to allow Zanchetta to live in the monastery, which they say is “untimely, arbitrary” and decided “without consultation and with a manifest lack of consideration for the seminarians and the parishioners.”

They are asking the archbishop to revisit the arrangement “out of respect for the victims and their families, who feel mocked with this decision of house arrest,” and whom, they said, “cannot begin a path of healing” in the current circumstances.

Organizers told local media they would present their petition against Zanchettta’s living arrangements to the metropolitan Archbishop Mario Cargnello of Salta. Local activists said they decided to write to the archbishop after receiving no response to their concerns from Zanchetta’s successor in the Diocese of Oran, Bishop Luis Scozzina.

– Raju Hasmukh

(with files from The Pillar)