ARGENTINA
The Tablet
[Detailed Summary of Case of Julio César Grassi, Drawn from Media Coverage and Public Reports – BishopAccountability.org]
3 October 2013
A priest who was defended by Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, has begun a 15-year prison sentence for the sexual abuse of an adolescent boy in the 1990s. Fr Julio Cesar Grassi, 57, was the nationally known leader of Buenos Aires’ Happy Children Foundation, a centre for troubled boys, at the time the crime took place.
Grassi has consistently maintained his innocence. He told the provincial court in Moron that jailed him on Monday: “The prosecutors have lied and set up a case against me.”
Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi declined to comment on the case, which is making headlines in Argentina.
According to the Wall Street Journal, in a 2006 interview with the Argentine magazine Veintitres, Cardinal Bergoglio Fr Grassi had not been suspended from his priestly duties because his case was “different” from other cases of alleged sexual abuse that had emerged at the time.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.