VATICAN CITY
LifeSite News
Jan Bentz
ROME, December 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican has laicized a close collaborator of the late Salvadorian Archbishop Oscar Romero and two other priests of the Archdiocese of San Salvador for crimes of sexual abuse, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper, reported this week.
One of the three priests suspended since 2015 is Jesus Delgado, 78, who was accused of abusing a girl for years. Delgado was Romero’s former secretary and a close collaborator who went on to serve as the vicar general of the Archdiocese of San Salvador. He later became biographer and co-postulator of Romero’s case for beatification.
The press release for the laicization of Delgado can be found here. Laicization is the most severe punishment in the Catholic Church for a member of the clergy.
Also laicized were Francisco Gálvez and Antonio Molina. Gálvez was a parish priest of Nuestra Señora del Rosario church in Rosario de Mora and Molina served at Santa Cruz de Rome in Panchimalco. Both were removed for having sexually abused children more than 20 years ago.
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