ITALY
International Business Times
By Umberto Bacchi
October 28, 2014
A town priest in central Italy flogged parishioners with a rosary and forced some to lick the floor of his mediaeval church during abusive purification rituals, local prosecutors have alleged.
Father André Luiz Facchini is facing trial in Lanciano, Abruzzo on a series of charges including private violence, bodily harm, harassment, slander and making threats, dating from 2013.
The 39-year-old clergyman was reported to police by a group of local youths who claimed he “punished” them as a penance “to free their souls from purgatory”, Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper reported.
The alleged victims were members of a Roman Catholic sect named Legio Sacrorum Cordium, which was founded by Facchini.
A former member of the group told local television channel Abruzzolive that the purification sessions were, usually, held around midnight in the 13th-century Chiesa di Sant’Agostino church in Lanciano.
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