Ba Province Supreme Court Head Denies Grassi Talks with Pope

Buenos Aires Herald
September 20, 2013

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/141089/ba-province-supreme-court-head-denies-grassi-talks-with-pope-

Buenos Aires province Supreme Court head Héctor Negri

Head of the Buenos Aires province Supreme Court Héctor Negri was received by Pope Francis less than three weeks ago at the Vatican. Today he rejected versions alluding he had discussed the legal situation of priest Julio César Grassi with the pontiff.

The provincial maximum tribunal ratified Grassi’s 15-year sentence for sexually abussing a boy at the “Happy Children Foundation” he was in charge of. “We have said in the ruling everything we had to say; whatever is said know and the subsequent consequences have nothing to do with the Court’s decision, this was no motive for our ruling,” the judge explained.

“A (Supreme) Court president travelling and asking someone else how he must rule would be something so horrible to do that honestly I don’t know the person who says so which justice criteria follows,” Negri insisted questioning the allegations that sparked after his meeting with the Argentine pope, following actually this week’s arrest warrant that another provincial court issued against Julio Grassi.

When asked about Francis’ position about pedophile priests, the Supreme Court president said he “did not know pope’s private thinking” about an issue that has stained the Catholic Church over the past years with sexual abuse and corruption scandals the ex Argentine cardinal is now trying to put an end to, as he insisted he met Francis for “absolutely spiritual reasons (that (lie) thousands of kilometers away from any judicial sentence.”