IRAPUATO (MEXICO)
BishopAccountability.org [Waltham MA]
July 25, 2023
La traducción en español estará disponible pronto.
Ordained 1965. In 1977, Gutiérrez founded “La Ciudad de los Niños” (The City of Children), a shelter for homeless minors and abandoned children in the city of Salamanca, Guanajuato. He eventually opened five other affiliated shelters: two more in Salamanca and one in each of the following cities: Irapuato, Guanajuato; Moroleón, Guanajuato; and Morelia, Michoacán.
Beginning in 2009, the attorney general of Guanajuato reportedly knew of allegations of rape and sexual abuse against Gutiérrez Farías and other shelter personnel but chose not to act on them. In 2017, in response to a case of a girl who had been inflicted with burns at La Ciudad de los Niños shelter in Salamanca, a federal judge in Irapuato decreed a “complete review” of the shelter and alerted the attorney general. The state took over the shelter for roughly a year.
In July 2017, in a swift response to the federal judge’s action, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) launched an investigation into the abuse of children and disabled adults at Gutiérrez’ shelters. In September 2018, the then-attorney general of Guanajuato, Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre, reportedly cleared Gutiérrez of five criminal cases that had been initiated after the federal judge’s investigation. In July 2019, Gutiérrez called a press conference to announce his intention to re-open La Ciudad de los Niños.
In May 2020, the National Human Rights Commission published the findings of its nearly three-year-long investigation. It announced that it was filing criminal complaints for acts of torture in Gutiérrez’ shelters against 21 minors and 10 disabled adults as well as acts of sexual violence against nine adolescents and four adults. The commission found that 324 residents of the Ciudad de los Niños de Salamanca shelter, mostly children and intellectually disabled adults, were “victims of serious violations: sexual abuse, torture, loss of identity, child abuse, unhealthy conditions, promiscuity and risk, as well as educational abandonment.” In addition, the state of Guanajuato, according to the inquiry, allowed more than 100 shelter residents to be registered as Fr. Gutiérrez’ biological sons and daughters. The commission also cited “criminal complacency” on the part of law enforcement in three states — Guanajuato, Querétaro and Aguascalientes — as well as negligence and omissions by politicians and other civil agencies, including Guanajuato’s Sistema Nacional para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia or DIF (the National System for Integral Family Development). It also pointed to failures by civil authorities in the state of Michoacán.
In response to the shocking revelations, it was revealed that the bishop of Irapuato, Enrique Díaz Díaz (March 2017 to the present), had done little to stop the priest. Gutiérrez had refused his “invitation” to meet, Diaz said, and he admitted that the priest had not been suspended from ministry. Díaz explained that Gutiérrez had been permitted in 2004 to found a congregation of priests and nuns to work in Ciudad de los Niños, and that the congregation had been operating ad experimentum, in test mode, until January 2020, when it was finally suppressed, years after the shocking evidence of child rape and torture had come to light. Diaz also admitted that the Holy See and papal nuncio “had been aware of the situation” (of abuse, presumably) since 2017.
In November 2020, Gutiérrez died from a heart attack and complications from Covid-19. He was 79. Bishop Díaz officiated at his funeral and issued a statement asking God to grant him the “prize of glory, reserved for workers of His vineyard.” The bishop separately stated that he had never initiated a canonical investigation of Gutiérrez because none of his victims had reported to the diocese.