GUADALAJARA (MEXICO)
Los Ángeles Press [Ciudad de México, Mexico]
March 24, 2025
By Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez
New evidence of the global nature of the clergy sexual abuse crisis from Mexico, France, and, perhaps, Argentina and other Latin American countries.
In France, former students and professors of Bétharram tell their stories of abuse, calling students of schools associated with that order in Argentina to come forward.
Having schools in one of the dioceses most affected by clergy abuse in Argentina, chances are the order behind Bétharram will face accusations in Latin America too.
This week there is a need to acknowledge a recent Mexican case of clergy sexual abuse and to take notice of what could be the effects in Argentina and elsewhere in the Catholic world of the crisis at the French boarding school of Our Lady of Bétharram.
These, as many other cases, confirm the global nature of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. It global nature is a consequence of the structure of the Catholic Church but also of sexual abuse as such, and a reminder of the need to address its root causes, and to not get lost in the minutiae of local or national politics.
In Mexico, Valeria Hernández Carreón, a former novice at the local branch of the Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart, came forward, on her own over her Facebook profile, about her experience with abuse at the equivalent of a seminary.
The abuse happened from December 2021 until April 2022, when Valeria was already an adult, at the novitiate of that order in Guadalajara, 358 miles or 576 kilometers West of Mexico City. Valeria posted a somehow censored version of a letter she sent back in 2022 to the leaders of the order where she was a novice and where the abuse happened.
Her case is far less violent than others affecting male and female orders in Mexico, other Spanish-speaking countries, and the Catholic world at large. It is not clear what kind or role sexual abuse at seminaries and houses of formation plays in the vocations drought affecting the Catholic Church nowadays, but it is hard to dismiss it as a factor.
In Los Angeles Press we have followed the case of a Mexican former seminarian who was victim of clergy sexual abuse at the hands of a deacon while both were working at the diocese of Ciudad Juárez, in the state of Chihuahua. An interview where he goes over some of the details of the abuse is available in the story below.
https://losangelespress.org/english-edition/2024/sep/09/back-to-ciudad-juarez-9523.html
More recently, Los Angeles Press went over the painful experience of repeated abuse of a nun. Born in the 1980s in the Mexican state of Chiapas, the Southernmost of Mexico, Myriam, an assumed identity to protect her, as she is still dealing with a painful process at the Mexican judiciary, she was a victim of repeated attacks from different priests.
She never claims this but, given her partial blindness since she was a teenager, and the harassment she has been suffering from a former priest of the now archdiocese of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital city of Chiapas, it is not hard to imagine that predatory Mexican priests shared the knowledge about her partial blindness using that to sexually assault her when she was in closed, poorly lighted environments, where her partial blindness makes her more vulnerable.
Her case with additional information about the sexual abuse of nuns or religious sisters by Catholic priests lead us to publish a bilingual, English and Spanish, electronic book where we provide more context on the extent of clergy sexual abuse against Roman Catholic nuns. You can download the book for free at the story linked above or over at Scribd here.
Different nature
Valeria’s case is, at least as far as it is possible to tell now, of a different nature. As with Leonardo Escárcega Velásquez’s case in Ciudad Juárez, it is a same-sex type of abuse that never went as far as Myriam’s case in Tuxtla Gutiérrez and other Mexican dioceses.
It is the kind of sexual abuse that Benedict XVI used to justify his reform of the education offered in Catholic seminaries and houses of formation of nuns and non-ordained male religious.
Moreover, it was the kind of sexual abuse Benedict XVI also used to justify the massive apostolic visitation launched in a rather indiscriminate manner against most of the female religious orders in the United States and that, ultimately, went nowhere because there was never an actual purpose besides reminding the American nuns their subordinate role in their church and the potential effects of the deeply seated misogyny in Rome.
It was, in many respects, the Catholic equivalent of McCarthyism, a probe launched to force a realignment into some kind of philosophical or theological orthodoxy the nuns leading those orders.
However, it would be naïve to dismiss the fact that, as almost any male order or male-led diocese in the larger Roman Catholic Church, there is sexual abuse in the female religious orders.
As in Myriam’s case, they are victims of abuse at the hands of male clergy who enjoy the privilege of providing a service that the Catholic Church considers females are unable to perform: the celebration of two key sacraments: confession or reconciliation and presiding over mass.
Given the fact that females cannot become deacons, presbyters, or bishops in the Catholic Church, female orders require to either attend mass and/or confess at a nearby parish or, when possible, to host their own masses with some additional time so the priest can hear the confessions of the sisters in the congregation.
For the so-called “active” orders that is not a major obstacle as many sisters in those congregations actively participate with the communities where they do their apostolate.
But that is harder and almost impossible for the so-called “contemplative” orders, some of whom actively avoid contact with the “outer world” as part of their spiritual practice, the so called “charisma.”
Valeria’s case sheds light on other aspect of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. It is relevant not only because it involves a same-sex kind of dynamic, but also because it allows to understand how nuns who have been victims of sexual abuse develop their own path replicating dynamics, strategies of sexual abuse.
Male figure
The very brief letter, only two pages, Valeria published over her Facebook profile tells the story of her own abuse, but through her account of what a senior nun in her community did to her it is possible to see how that nun, Sandra Elizabeth Durán Peña, was also victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a priest offering her to “heal her relationship with the male figure”.
After this paragraph I provide a translation of Valeria’s letter (she only published it in Spanish). I was able to confirm that all the names she details there correspond with nuns who were registered as such up until 2019 at the national registry of the so-called “religious associations” office of the Mexican government.
In the Facebook post where Valeria made public the fondling she had to endure at the hands of the elder nun, at what is, for practical purposes, a boarding school, she makes clear that she is going through this as a way to warn the order where she spent some years as an aspiring sister about what is happening there.
She provides there some details about other two novices in that congregation with similar experiences. The translation of her testimony appears in the box after this paragraph. Please see original article for letter.
It is not hard to imagine that, given the nature of this case, there will be a relatively easy solution to Valeria who is not seeking punishment nor reparation. The issue, that is beyond Valeria’s scope or responsibility is if there were other cases and how far Sandra Elizabeth Durán Peña went with other novices or junior nuns at that congregation.
This is more relevant as Valeria herself talks about two other cases related to Durán Peña, and because sexual abuse in religious settings usually follows patterns of repeated and systematic attacks where the key issue is not sexual orientation, as it is possible to see in Valeria’s account that Durán Peña was herself the victim of some form of heterosexual assault at the hands of the priest was trying to “help” her heal her relationship with the “male figure.”
A thorough probe of this issue would not stop at Valeria’s case. Her case, her letter to the leaders of the order where she tried her hand at religious life early in this decade, is a window into other episodes of sexual abuse at the houses of the sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Bétharram, from France to Argentina
The other key development over the last week has been the news about the potential effects in Argentina of the crisis at the boarding school of Our Lady of Bétharram in Southern France.
Previous installments of this series went over some of the details of that case. The case is relevant not only because, as mentioned last week, a growing number of survivors of sexual abuse at that boarding house are coming forward.
Other schools, boarding or otherwise, in other regions of France are also emerging as the sites of similar experiences of widespread, systematic, clergy sexual abuse, worsened by what many of the survivors and their advocates are describing as an omerta, the code of silence shaping relations in criminal organizations in Southern Europe and elsewhere.
As described in the first installment partially devoted to Bétharram, linked below, that omerta would go all the way up to the current Prime Minister of France, François Bayrou who, given the features of the French polity is both a member of parliament (the National Assembly) and, at the same time, the mayor of Pau, a township less than 25 miles or less than 40 kilometers Northwest of the Basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes and a bit over 30 miles or 50 kilometers from the border with Spain.
In that respect, Pau, and Our Lady of Bétharram is as close to the Catholic heartland of France as possible. However, because of that it is also a region prone to embrace the aforementioned code of omerta, of silence at all expense, regardless of the consequences.
A feature that was missing in out prior coverage of this case is that, despite the apparent willingness of the current bishop of that region, Marc Marie Max Aillet to acknowledge the abuses there, he was unwilling to cooperate with the probe that ultimately led to the publication of the Sauvé Report .
The fact that he decided not to cooperate with the Sauvé Report grows in significance as the effects of what happened at Bétharram become more evident. It is not as if it was, again, an isolated case. Several cohorts of former students at that institution keep coming out with stories of all types of abuse, sexual, and otherwise, that are opening the door to other cases.
In the name of discipline
At the Facebook group of the former students of Bétharram now there are former students at other Catholic schools in France, as that of Our Lady of Garaison, this one also located 30 miles or 50 kilometers, but to the East of the Basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes, also very close to the border with Spain, in Southern France, with similar stories of widespread abuse from the clergy and lay personnel who were supposed to care for them.
Even in Bétharram itself the extent of damage keeps expanding. Recently, both a former professor and the daughter of another former professor came forward to provide details of the extent of the abuse, sexual and otherwise occurring at that school.
Both at Bétharram and other cases of abuse, sexual and otherwise occurring in Catholic religious settings, the need to set a certain idea of order and discipline played a key role. In that respect, it is possible to see how parents were sending their children to Bétharram and Garaison rendered as places to deal with “tough” or “difficult” children, who sadly are now survivors of abuse, sexual and otherwise.
The schools were places, brands of sorts, where the parents paying for their offspring’s education were willing to accept a certain degree of violence against the student. It was a way to tough them up, to “turn them into evils.” In that regard, it was easier for the parents and perhaps even the French authorities or the bishops in that region to dismiss any warnings about abuse happening there.
Robin Richardot , a French author, published on Saturday an enlightening piece explaining abuse at Bétharram as related to discipline inasmuch as it was a warranty of the success of the local elites.
Sadly, Le Monde has Richardot’s piece behind a paywall, but if you are willing to pay for the subscription at the French newspaper you can find it here .
That idea of discipline as desperately sought by the parents themselves and the effects that had on the systematic dismissal of the many signs of warning that emerged over the years there will continue to come up as a key ingredient in what was happening at that and other French Catholic schools.
A glimpse into that attitude emerges from the testimony of the daughter of a former professor at Bétharram in the video linked before this paragraph, while a similar take from a former professor there appears in this video , available at YouTube .
Both videos are available with audio only in French. You can try to request subtitles in English over YouTube ‘s control panel. On the second of those videos the former professor at that school talks about a “moral torture.”
Besides the details offered there, in the second video, by former professor Françoise Gullung of the kind of punishments the students at Bétharram were subject to, she also tells the story of the professional consequences that she faced after she filed a formal complaint with the French authorities before resigning her position there.
That is one of the reasons why it is hard to believe, as François Bayrou still claims, that he was unaware of the abuse, sexual and otherwise, happening at that school in a place where he has been a major political figure for the last 30 years or so.
In that regard, Bayrou is facing the ire of the French-speaking social media reminding him every time they can of how he dismissed what was happening at Bétharram, Garaison, and other Catholic schools in France. It must be noted at this point that he has been, at different points in his career, both minister of Education of the French national government (1993-1997) and minister of Justice for a month in 2017, as his Wikipedia biography proves .
Back on March 11th, he as many other European politicians used his social media to commemorate the victims of the terrorist attacks in Madrid, Spain, back in 2004, and his account was immediately flooded with reminders of how dismissive he has been with that other form of terror in Bétharram and other schools in France, as the posting after this paragraph proves. Please see original article for more information.
Over and over, the responses to Bayrou’s postings, more so those celebrating his 100 days as French Prime Minister use the idea of omerta as a major feature of what was happening at Bétharram, his own silence, and the overall strategy he follows on this issue.
Yes, it is global
However, the abuses at Bétharram can become a different, broader, global crisis if, as a consequence of what is happening in France these days, there is evidence that the order running the school at Pau, France, the so called Bétharramites , officially called in English the clerics of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Bétharram, performed similar “acts of discipline” in their schools in Argentina.
As it happens, the current general superior of the order is an Argentine priest, Gustavo Agín, and they own several schools in that country. As a consequence, the network of Argentine survivors of clergy sexual abuse are trying to reach the former students at schools managed by that order in Argentina.
One of those schools is the Colegio de San José de La Plata. Here is their official website and here their official profile at Facebook , although this profile has not been updated since the days of the pandemic in 2021.
The fact that it is associated with the archdiocese of La Plata is relevant because of the many issues that diocese has faced since the days of Héctor Rubén Aguer as its head, with many cases on record, but also because as enthusiastic as Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández is when defending Pope Francis ‘s record, his own record as archbishop there, as those of his successors there, are not encouraging.
Suffice to remind the case of Eduardo Lorenzo , the priest who committed suicide minutes after a judge issued an arrest warrant for sexually abusing underaged men in that diocese, as the story after this paragraph tells, although it is available only in Spanish.
Also, because the order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Bétharram as many other orders in the Catholic world move around priests with known issues from one country to another. As it is the case with other orders, it is hard to track down their appointments or the reasons why some of those appointments are shorter than expected.
Even if it is possible to figure out the trajectories of some of the priests and religious brothers in this congregation, some priests appear as having concurrent appointments in dioceses in the United Kingdom and Thailand. It would be easy to believe that one priest from this congregation could be moving around from France to Spain, more so if he were proficient in Basque, as those two countries are next to each other and there is a real need for Basque-speaking clergy in Northern Spain and Southern France.
However, the chances to understand how a priest appears as having active appointments in two British dioceses while being also active in Thailand are really hard to grasp.
Father Wilfred Pereppadan appears as having some appointment at both the Archdiocese of Birmingham in central England, halfway between London and Liverpool, while he also appears as being in charge of the parish of the Blessed Robert Widmerpool in the diocese of Nottingham, 45 miles or 74 kilometers north of Birmingham, while also being credited as the Regional Superior of the Saint Myriam Crucified region in Thailand, as this posting of Bétharram Thailand over Facebook indicates .
We are not implicating Pereppadan in any clergy sexual abuse case but having him credited as clergy in countries separated by almost six thousand miles or ten thousand kilometers only proves how hard it is to track down clergy appointments. If that would be useful when dealing with regular, well-behaved clergy, it is a pressing need when talking about religious orders facing what is a very serious crisis as with the order behind the school of Our Lady of Bétharram.
In the wake of these disturbing revelations, the Catholic Church faces a critical juncture. The cases in Mexico and France, with their reverberations across continents, underscore the urgent need for systemic reform, transparency, and accountability. Beyond addressing individual instances of abuse, the Catholic Church must confront the deeply rooted power dynamics and cultural norms that have enabled these atrocities. Only through a commitment to genuine healing for survivors, and a dismantling of the structures that perpetuate abuse, can the Catholic Church begin to restore its credibility.
Catholic leaders need to learn that there is no trust without accountability, and there is no accountability if it is impossible to figure out when and why a priest goes from Europe to Asia or Latin America, as proven last week with the secrecy around the movements or clergy in the Legion of Christ.