Patheos blog
July 5, 2019
By Barry Duke
THE Vatican’s third most powerful prelate, Archbishop Peña Parra – pictured above with Pope Francis – was never subjected to an ‘open and thorough investigation’ for ‘troubling accusations’ of sex abuse that date back decades.
The accusations even suggest that he and another Catholic priest had been implicated in the death of two people in Venezuela but never faced prosecution.
The accusation was made this week by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal ambassador to the US. Viganò said the high-ranking prelate was not investigated despite the existence of what he calls a “terrifying dossier” sent to Pope Francis that gives names and dates regarding his alleged misbehaviour.
Viganò states that one accusation, involving Peña Parra seducing two candidates for a seminary in 1990, was reported by the alleged victims’ parents to the police, and the veracity of the accusations were confirmed in writing to the Secretariat of State by both the rector of the major seminary and by seminary’s spiritual director.
Viganò told the Post that “I have seen these documents with my own eyes,” and that the documentation as well as that pertaining to other accusations should still be on file in the Holy See:
If it has not been destroyed.
Parra, who was installed in October of last year as the Substitute of the Secretariat of State, the second in charge of the most influential Vatican dicastery, has been under a cloud of suspicion following reports in the Italian media in 2018 of an investigation made by his bishop in the 1980s regarding accusations of homosexuality made against him anonymously.
However, the accusations mentioned by Archbishop Viganò are far more serious, including sexual predation against seminarians, adultery, and even a deadly sex game. He asserted:
This might even be a scandal surpassing that of McCarrick, and it must not be allowed to be covered by silence.
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