The diary of the late Alfonso Pedrajas, a Jesuit priest who allegedly confessed to abusing several youngsters in Bolivia beginning in the 1970s, has been delivered to Bolivia by the Vatican. This is the most recent step in the pedophilia crisis that has rocked the Andean nation.
The Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, which deals with cases of clergy sexual abuse, sent the diary to the Society of Jesus of Bolivia, according to a statement released on Thursday reported by NBC News. The diary was then given to the prosecutor's office in the city of Cochabamba, where the alleged abuse allegedly occurred.
The Abuse of 85 Minors
The Jesuit order, known as the Society of Jesus, announced that it would ask for a copy of the diary kept by Pedrajas, who passed away in 2009, in order to read the entirety of it. Only a few portions were made public in April by the Spanish newspaper El Pas, which broke the story first. According to the journal, Pedrajas allegedly admits to abusing 85 juveniles, the majority of whom were boarders in Cochabamba between the 1970s and 1990s.
Read also: Pope Francis Vows To End Sexual Abuse in Catholic Church: 'It's Monstrous'
Church to Cooperate With the Case
The diary arrived in Bolivia less than a week after Pope Francis wrote to President Luis Arce, expressing his concern and describing himself as "dismayed" by the claims of sexual abuse by priests and promising the Church's cooperation in the investigation conducted by Bolivia's legal system.
Francis dispatched one of his top sex crimes investigators to Bolivia a few days after the Pedrajas case came to light. Prior to this, the investigations into the abuses done by priests in Chile and Paraguay were headed by the Spanish priest Jordi Bertomeu.
This investigation has revealed other instances of sexual abuse, and last month one priest was sentenced to three months of pretrial incarceration.
According to the Bolivian Episcopal Conference, there are currently at least 12 legal investigations of clergy members in Bolivia, one of which has already resulted in a priest accused of rape receiving a 10-year prison sentence. In several of the cases, the alleged abusers have already passed away.
A former Bolivian seminarian, Pedro Lima, has accused a network of Catholic priests in Bolivia of sexually abusing children and adults for decades. Lima said that he was abused by priests when he was a child and that he witnessed other children being abused as well. He also said that senior clergy in the Catholic Church knew about the abuse but did nothing to stop it. The allegations have been corroborated by the journal of a Spanish priest, Alfonso Pedrajas, who died in 2009.
Related article: Vatican To Release Evidence Related to 1983 Disappearance of 15-Year-Old Girl
