P. Marco Agüero Vidal

Padre Marco Agüero Vidal was arrested March 3, 2026 at his parish, Nuestra Señora de la Alegría church in San Borja, Lima, after police received complaints that he had sexually abused penitents during the sacrament of confession and following an unruly protest by parishioners defending him. Agüero was detained for seven days; he was released on March 12.

According to a Diario Correo report, five females filed complaints of inappropriate touching during confession. Two were adults, and the three others were minors represented by their parents. One mother told Radio Exitosa that the priest had grabbed her daughter’s leg during confession on more than two occasions.

Months earlier, in early December 2025, some of the complainants and other parishioners had sent a long letter to Lima archbishop Cardinal Carlos Castillo requesting an investigation into the priest and his removal. The letter cited “confusing” changes to the liturgy, and also said that several young women, including at least one minor, had been subject to “non-consensual touching” by Agüero. During confession, the priest had placed his hands on some of the alleged victims’ shoulders “and, in other cases, on their knees,” according to a page from the letter that was published by Infovaticana. The letter appended statements by three of the complainants, including a minor. The parishioners did not receive a response.

In response to the publicity around the Agüero’s arrest in March, the archdiocese removed him from public ministry. It also issued a public statement acknowledging that it had received the parishioners’ letter in December and that the archdiocese’s “Listening Commission” had assessed it and forwarded to Cardinal Castillo on December 26, 2025. The archdiocese said that Castillo had ordered a preliminary investigation and then subjected Agüero to unspecified “precautionary measures” and that the investigation was still ongoing.

On March 13, 2026, the local prosecutor requested that the priest be subject to nine months’ preventive detention for alleged “inappropriate touching, acts of a sexual nature, or lewd acts against three minors and two adult women” (“tocamientos indebidos, actos de connotación sexual o actos libidinosos en agravio detres menores de edad y dos adultas.”) On April 18, 2026, Peru 21 reported that the Superior Court of Lima had lifted the travel ban on the priest. The article included an image of a March 9, 2026 letter from the Lima archdiocese to law enforcement, stating that the archdiocese had recorded no complaints against Agüero – an apparent contradiction of Cardinal Castillo’s public statement on March 6 that he had received the letter the alleged victims had sent in December 2025.