PUERTO RICO
Legal Examiner
Posted by Joseph H. Saunders
March 21, 2014
In Puerto Rico, Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez Nieves of San Juan and Bishop Daniel Fernandez Torres of Arecibo have handed over to civil authorities a group of priests accused of sexual abuse.
The Catholic Church on the island has long been criticized by victims of sexually abusive priests for shielding abusive priests, moving them from parish to parish rather than reporting them to police. The church has also always steadfastly refused to turn over records for prosecution or punish officials that covered up the crimes.
It what can be seen as dramatic turnaround by Archbishop Gonzalez Nieves, six cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors by priests were turned over to Puerto Rican prosecutors and he pledged “the full cooperation of the Archdiocese, regardless of whether the person who committed the abuse is a minister, employee or volunteer.
At the beginning of this year the newspaper El Nuevo Dia published a series of hard-hitting stories about sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Puerto Rico. This investigation led to Bishop Daniel Fernandez disclosing that he had defrocked six priests from the town of Arecibo accused of sex abuse. Since then local prosecutors across the island have disclosed that at least 11 other priests are under investigation for similar accusations.
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