PUERTO RICO
Fox News
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Two Roman Catholic (search) priests in Puerto Rico's countryside were charged with sexually abusing four girls, police said Wednesday.
Revs. Jose Florencio Martinez Corvera (search), 39, and Manuel de la Cruz Sanchez Rivera (search), 49, both of El Salvador, were arrested Monday, police officer Maria Martinez Cubano said.
Both had been visiting priests at the La Monserrate parish of Jayuya, a central mountain town in the U.S. Caribbean territory, said Martinez Cubano, one of the officers in charge of the investigation.
The arrests came as some Catholics expressed hope that the successor to the late Pope John Paul II (search) would take a stronger stand against sexual abuse in the church. The sexual abuse crisis erupted in Massachusetts in January 2002, then rippled into most dioceses in the United States; the church in Canada, Australia, Latin America and Europe — including the pope's own Poland — also faced scandals.
Posted by kshaw at April 7, 2005 09:08 AM