COLOMBIA
El Nuevo Herald
BY BY CESAR GARCIA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
[Summary: Gardinal Ruben Salazar, president of the Columbia Episcopal Conference, said Monday that the Catholic Church has a zero tolerance policy for child abuse. In cases of clergy sexual abuse, the church has intervened immediately to punish the guilty, he said. Neither the cardinal nor the CEC keeps track of how many of the 8,000 Colombian priests have been the subject of abuse complaints.
His latest remarks came as legislator Jaime Alonso Vazquez, who was a priest, has been accused of child sexual abuse. Vasquez is now a legislator. According to journalist Daniel Coronell in the latest edition of Semana magazine, Vazquez before coming to Congress in 2010 is alleged to have molested a child under age 13 when he was a priest in the late 1990s in San Jose de Guaviare. The community is in the south of Colombia. He has denied the allegation. The alleged victim, now 29, recently went to the attorney general with the allegation.]
BY POR CESAR GARCIA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOGOTA, Colombia — La Iglesia Católica colombiana tiene tolerancia cero con la pederastia, destacó el lunes el cardenal Rubén Salazar, presidente de la Conferencia Episcopal Colombiana, al conocerse una nueva denuncia sobre un presunto abuso sexual.
“La posición de la Iglesia es perfectamente clara: es tolerancia cero y por lo tanto en casos concretos de abusos sexuales de parte de sacerdotes, la Iglesia inmediatamente ha intervenido para iniciar procesos que lleguen al castigo del culpable”, dijo el cardenal a la prensa durante un foro multisectorial sobre reconciliación nacional.
Ni el cardenal ni la CEC llevan un registro de cuántos de los 8.000 curas colombianos han sido objeto de denuncias de abusos.
El más reciente señalamiento surgió en contra del legislador Jaime Alonso Vásquez, quien fue sacerdote y está suspendido debido a su participación en política.
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