(ITALY)
The Times/The Sunday Times [London, England]
July 26, 2024
By Tom Kington
Church leader in Sicily ‘knowingly guilty’ of failing to act over priest who slept with teenager and was given a four-year jail sentence
A Catholic bishop covered up for a sexually abusive priest, a court in Sicily has ruled, creating embarrassment for Pope Francis who recently praised the bishop and claimed he was being “persecuted”.
Rosario Gisana, bishop of Piazza Armerina in Sicily, was “knowingly guilty” of covering up for a priest who was handed a four-year jail sentence this year after his young victim went to the police, the court in Enna ruled.
Police who wiretapped Gisana during an investigation overheard him telling the priest, Father Giuseppe Rugolo: “This is now not only your problem but also mine because I covered up the affair.”
Antonio Messina, who waived his anonymity, was abused as a teenager by Rugolo between 2009 and 2013. He and his family first reported the priest to the bishop who launched a Church inquiry, only to rule that Rugolo had relations with Messina when he was still a seminarian, meaning the Church was in no way culpable.
Messina, who was about 16 at the time, has alleged that the abuse continued after Rugolo, who was about ten years older than him, was made a priest.
“Gisana told Rugolo he would be a saint one day and that the accusations were God’s way of testing his faith,” said Stefano Feltri, co-author of The Confession, a podcast about the case.
“Gisana moved the priest to Ferrara in northern Italy because the boy’s family was complaining and Rugolo continued to have sex with young men at the Ferrara diocese.”
Gisana has denied covering up for Rugolo.
The court’s allegation that Gisana protected Rugolo, which was contained in its reasoning about Rugolo’s conviction, comes after Pope Francis enthusiastically exonerated Gisana from any wrongdoing, claiming he was “a good bishop who was persecuted and defamed”.
Father Giuseppe Rugolo was handed a four-year jail sentence this year after his victim went to the police
“It is possible Francis was in debt to Gisana, who ran a commission for him looking into a Palermo bishop accused of raping nuns and concluded there was sex but no violence,” Feltri said.
In 2019, Francis issued an apostolic letter called “You are the light of the world” with new rules on tackling bishops “interfering with civil or Church probes into predator priests”.
Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of BishopAccountability, a website documenting abuse in the Roman Catholic church, said: “It’s pretty clear Gisana should be investigated under the terms of the rules, but he could be the latest in a long line of bishops that Francis has stood up for and not investigated. The rules exist but Francis frequently conveys his own disregard for them.”