MEXICO
Mexico News Daily
Saturday, October 22, 2016
The father of one of the children in the eight documented cases of pedophilia committed by a priest in Oaxaca has spoken out about the forgotten victims of the crime: the relatives of the abused child.
Pedro Mendoza, whose son was allegedly a victim of Catholic priest Gerardo Silvestre, says he and his wife suffered along with their son when the crime was uncovered.
“The suffering continues, and now includes our other children. It is a chain, and sadly the seed planted by the sexual abuse has taken root,” he said.
His son, who now lives in the State of México with his mother and siblings, has “given in to a life of vice and crime,” he told the newspaper El Universal.
Silvestre allegedly abused over 40 youths over a decade ago in mountainous indigenous communities in the state of Oaxaca. Of those cases, only eight have been documented. Witness reports said Silvestre’s modus operandi was to invite the boys into the parish house, where he got them drunk before sexually abusing them.
Mendoza’s official accusation against the priest, filed in 2012, was the first received by the authorities, but the Catholic church had had knowledge of the priest’s crimes since 2009 when another priest, Manuel Arias, informed the archbishop of Oaxaca, José Luis Chávez Botello, about what was happening.
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