Former Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta Found Guilty of Abuse of 2 Seminarians and Sentenced to 4.5 Years in Prison



Former Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, was an advisor to the Pontiff for the administration of the Vatican patrimony. Zanchetta was arrested and found guilty in court.
He worked in Orán, Salta, Argentina, until 2017.
The Justice of the province of Salta sentenced the ex-bishop of Oran, Gustavo Zanchetta , to four and a half years in prison on Friday March 4th, 2022. Zanchetta was found responsible for sexual abuse against two seminarians .

The Argentine Episcopal Conference released the following statement after the verdict: March 4, 2022
Having known the judicial ruling in which Gustavo Zanchetta, Bishop
emeritus of the Diocese of San Ramón de la Nueva Orán, we want to express our closeness to the victims and express a strong and sincere request for forgiveness on behalf of the whole Church.
These painful events renew us in the committed and urgent task of
eradicate this type of abusive behavior and continue working hard for the
implementation of the measures that the Holy See has requested from Dioceses throughout the world in search of truth and justice.
Let us ask the Virgin Mary to console the immense pain of the victims and their families.
+ Alberto G. Bochatey, OSA
Auxiliary Bishop of La Plata
General secretary
Argentine Episcopal Conference  Source: https://episcopado.org/ver/3220
*****
More about the case:
The judges of Chamber II of the Orán Trial Court, María Laura Toledo Zamora, Raúl Fernando López and Héctor Fabián Fayos, sentenced Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta as the perpetrator of the crime of continued simple sexual abuse aggravated for being committed by a minister of religious worship recognized to the detriment of GG and MC
The judges also ordered his immediate arrest  at the hearing and, once the sentence is final, that Zanchetta be registered in the Genetic Data Bank.
The sentence is what prosecutors had requested for the bishop.

In her statement before the court, the prosecutor María Soledad Filtrín Cuezzo had argued that during the trial "it was possible to establish the veracity, plausibility and credibility of the victims , who presented in their complaints and during the trial internal logic, contextualization of the facts, precision of details and experiences from the anatomical point of view,'' according to a statement from the Public Prosecutor's Office of Salta.


The bishop denied the accusations and said that he is the victim of a "revenge" of Oran priests with whom he had differences.
In 2016, five priests filed a formal accusation against their then superior before the Nunciature. In that complaint Zanchetta was accused of authoritarianism, economic mismanagement with ecclesiastical properties and sexual abuse that would have happened in the San Juan XXIII seminary.

Pope Francis ordered the opening of a canonical trial and assured that nothing was known about the allegations of alleged economic crimes or sexual abuse when Zanchetta was appointed to the Vatican. The results of this process are not yet known.
Another of the prosecutors in the case, Pablo Rivero, pointed out that the psychological and psychiatric reports made to the bishop "present him as a person with psychopathic traits and a serious failure of impulse control...''.
Edited from : https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/salta-condenaron-obispo-abuso-sexual-seminaristas_0_HjP7sHWXcs.html

Comments

Lallay Tettleton said…
So sorry for the victims . The perpetrator needs to be deflocked and 4 1/2 years is not enough prison time for the life sentence of bad memories he sentenced his victims to . So sad . Praying for the victims . God less everyone .