MEXICO
International Business Times
BY JASON LE MIERE @JASONLEMIERE ON 03/02/17
A priest in southern Mexico has become the first member of the Catholic Church in the country ever to be convicted of sexual abuse. The Rev. Gerardo Silvestre Hernández, a priest in the Archdiocese of Antequera Oaxaca, was sentenced to 16 years and six months in prison last week for crimes committed against two minors between 2009 and 2010, according to the Catholic News Service. The priest was also ordered to pay damages to the victims of around $4000
Hernández, who had been in prison since 2013, was accused of abusing close to 100 minors between the ages of 11 and 13 in the village of Villa Alta, reported Mexican magazine Proceso. In passing his judgment, the presiding judge, Alfredo Lagunas Rivera, confirmed that it was the first time a conviction had been handed down against a member of a religious association in the country. Only in recent years has the subject of sexual abuse in the church been seen as a problem by Mexican Catholics, according to church observers.
The Oaxacan Childhood Forum (FONI) had called for the maximum sentence to be imposed. The coalition of groups has also insisted that Archbishop José Luis Chávez Botello should offer a public apology and pay damages to the victims. Hernández is alleged to have plied his victims with alcohol, shown them pornographic images and films and then sexually assaulted them.
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