MENDOZA (ARGENTINA)
Agence France-Presse
August 4, 2019
Ezequiel Villalonga spent most of his life at the Provolo Institute in Mendoza, a Catholic school for deaf children. But now the 18-year-old, who is deaf and mute, has lost all faith in the Church.
He and his classmates claim they are victims of the pedophile priests who ran the institution, part of a sweeping scandal that has shaken Argentina, Pope Francis’s home country.
“I think that everything in the Church is fake. Everything they made us read, recite, the way (they said) people should live,” he said in sign language, just before the start of the priests’ trial on Monday.
“I think they lie and that they’re demonic,” he added.
Ezequiel only learned sign language as an adult, because despite the Institute’s specialized mission, the school situated in the Andean foothills didn’t teach him how to speak
He was only seven months old when his mother realized he was deaf. When Ezequiel was four, she sent him to the Provolo, which was founded in 1995, 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) west of Buenos Aires.
Until Ezequiel was 16, when the scandal finally broke, he spent his days inside the massive building with a green roof. Once inside its red brick walls, he was only allowed to go home on weekends.
“Life there was terrible. We didn’t learn anything, we couldn’t speak to each other because we didn’t know sign language,” he said.
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