Victim advocates: Pope told of priest arrested in Argentina

ARGENTINA
Washington Post

By Luis Andres Henao and Nicole Winfield | AP December 1

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Advocates for clerical sex abuse victims expressed outrage Thursday that a priest accused of sexually abusing deaf children in Italy wasn’t sanctioned by the Vatican and allegedly went on to abuse children in Pope Francis’ native Argentina.

Argentine police arrested the priest, 82-year old Nicola Corradi, this week. Corradi, priest Horacio Corbacho, 55, and three other men are accused of abusing at least eight children at a school for youths with hearing disabilities in northwestern Mendoza province.

BishopAccountability.org, an online resource about clerical abuse, reported that Italian survivor groups told the Vatican in 2008 and 2014 about Corradi and others accused of molesting children at a school for the deaf in Verona.

“Words fail. It is appalling and heartbreaking that Corradi was not stopped by Pope Francis or by other Church authorities. Corradi’s presence at the school in Mendoza was no secret,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.

“Thanks to the Church’s inaction, Corradi appears to have been able to replicate exactly the grotesque situation he enjoyed in Verona – a ring of child molesters in charge of utterly defenseless children who could neither hear nor speak. If the allegations are true, the Pope must accept responsibility for the unimaginable suffering of these new victims.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.