An Argentine bishop considered close to Pope Francis was sentenced this Friday to four years and six months in prison for sexual abuse against two seminarians, according to the ruling of a court in the city of Oran (northwestern Argentina), which is likely to arrest him. immediately.
Bishop Gustavo Óscar Zanchetta, 57, who traveled from the Vatican to attend the hearings and was present in the room, was sentenced as "perpetrator of the crime of simple sex continued and aggravated for being committed by a minister of religious worship », according to a statement from the Judiciary of the province of Salta.
The trial began two weeks ago in Oran, a small town 1.700 km north of Buenos Aires.
Zanchetta was Bishop of the Diocese of Oran since 2013, a position to which he was appointed by the Argentine Pope, until his resignation in 2017.
He was also an advisor for the management of the Vatican heritage, and had pleaded not guilty to the accusation of the two seminarians.
For its part, the court also requested that, once the sentence is final (after possible appeals), Zanchetta be registered in the Genetic Data Bank, where the rapists would be registered. “We are with mixed feelings. We wanted the maximum penalty, I was very much looking forward to this day that has finally arrived. Justice was served in some way, the victims have been believed and the truth has come to light,” Estela Mari, a relative of one of the seminarians, declared before the court doors.
The complaint against the bishop was filed in 2018 by two seminarians, about events that, according to their account, occurred between 2014 and 2015. Having had a good and healthy relationship with all the seminarians.” He said that "behind the complaint of the two seminarians there is another connotation," according to the portal of the Judiciary of Salta, which does not add more details.
In addition, "he said that three priests had told him that the complaint was used for revenge," adds the official information.
In the allegations that took place on Thursday, the taxi referred to the statements of the complainants and those of several witnesses to require a sentence of 4 years and six months in effective prison, to which the judges agreed.
"It was not a conspiracy, since they first tried to handle it in the internal sphere of the Church," said prosecutor Soledad Filtrin Cuezzo. Before the court, the seminarians ratified their complaint, pointing out that the priest made "loving proposals" to them and insistently required "massages", in addition to "exploring their private lives", and "back support", the prosecutor summarized in the allegation .
Zanchetta's defense will appeal the sentence. “We do not share it because we not only consider that there is no evidence, but that the events did not happen. Obviously it is going to be appealed because we do not agree with the result”, his spokesman and canonical defender Javier Belda Iniesta told the press.
In 2017, Zanchetta suddenly resigned as pastoral director of the Oran diocese. A few months later he was appointed adviser for the management of real estate assets in the Vatican.
Following public denunciations, the Vatican also opened an investigation in 2019 and suspended him from his advisory duties. At the time, the Vatican's Take admitted that he was aware of allegations of "authoritarianism" against Zanchetta but not of sexual abuse.
In addition to this cause, the former bishop of Oran has two other processes open in Argentina for alleged economic mismanagement and abuse of power.
