PARAGUAY
GlobalPost
Alex Leff
July 28, 2014
The Vatican has ordered a church in eastern Paraguay to dismiss a priest accused of sexually abusing young men in the United States, according to Paraguayan press reports.
The Ciudad del Este diocese’s reported firing of Argentine priest Carlos Urrutigoity followed a recent investigative report by GlobalPost into his rise to power in the South American city, despite a string of molestation allegations against him.
The reporting, and local media coverage that followed, unleashed a flood of controversy over the priest’s continued work in the church — which had promoted him to the No. 2 post of vicar general.
According to legal documents reviewed by GlobalPost, seminarians in Minnesota and Pennsylvania made allegations against Urrutigoity that included his touching one young man’s genitals and asking another to insert anal suppositories in front of him. Clergy members from Switzerland to Scranton have issued warnings that the Argentine is “dangerous” and “a serious threat to young people.”
Urrutigoity has denied the allegations and never been criminally charged for them. But US activists have campaigned for him to be punished. That movement has gained fierce voices in Paraguay — and it appears to have gotten an answer from the pope.
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