SPAIN
The Local
The parents of ‘nuns’ with a Spanish sect hit whose leader has been hit with sexual abuse charges have called on the Pope to help convince the young women to leave the order.
The women are followers of The Voice of the Serviam, whose leader, Feliciano Miguel Rosendo da Silva and his right-hand woman, self-proclaimed ‘nun’ Marta Paz Alonso, were detained on December 11th on charges that included sexual abuse, money laundering and crimes against moral integrity.
The sect was previously called the Mandate and Order of Saint Michael Archangel, with Roseado da Silva changing its name when he was expelled from the Roman Catholic diocese of Tui in Galicia for “inappropriate behaviour”.
The sect had around 400 members at its peak, its choir singing for Pope Beneict XVI when he visited Madrid in 2011, but most of them left the group when Roseado Da Silva was expelled from Tui and moved to Madrid.
Roseado Da Silva’s arrest came a day after former members of the sect spoke out about the alleged sexual, physical and psychological abuse by the two leaders.
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