CHILE
Santiago Times
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Written by Maria Giulia Agostini
This weekend, Chile celebrated the “Día de la Virgen del Carmen,” one of the most important holidays of the Roman Catholic calendar, with masses and special services throughout the country. This year’s celebration, however, was marred with another stain on the reputation of the Catholic Church when a man uploaded a YouTube video describing his sexual abuse at the hands of respected Chilean priest Cristián Precht.
The alleged victim, Jorge Cantellano, said he was abused by Precht in 1979, when Cantellano was a 19-year-old student in a church seminary.
“He invited me to sleep in his room, which I found strange because priests had rooms for visitors,” Cantellano says in the video. “We talked about the vocation and a few other things. Once we were done, he took my hand, affectionately placed it on his chest and then lowered it toward his penis.”
Celebrated in the country for his humanitarian contribution during the Pinochet dictatorship, the public was shocked when Precht was linked to sexual abuse for the first time 11 months ago.
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