[See also: TIMELINE: The response of Archbishop Victor Fernández to Allegations Against Rev. Eduardo Lorenzo]
Raúl Anatoly Sidders was born in January 1961 and ordained in the archdiocese of La Plata in November 1988.
From 2002 to 2020, Padre Sidders was the chaplain at San Vicente de Paul, a traditional Catholic education center with more than 800 students, including both primary and secondary schools, located in the city of La Plata. He was also a military chaplain, working at the Punta Indio aeronaval base.
At some point in the first six months of 2020, La Plata archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández allowed Sidders to transfer to the diocese of Puerto Iguazú, in Misiones province, to serve as secretary to its new bishop, Nicolás Baisi, formerly auxiliary bishop of La Plata. News outlets reported that Sidders would continue to serve as a military chaplain, working with the National Gendarmerie squad based in Puerto Iguazú. Despite the move, Sidders would remain a La Plata archdiocesan priest.
In August 2020, a young woman filed a criminal complaint against Sidders, saying that he had sexually abused her from 2004 to 2007, when she was ages 11 to 14, a student at San Vicente de Paul in La Plata. On December 1, 2020, Sidders was arrested and detained. Today, he is under house arrest, awaiting his trial, which has been set for July 2025. He remains a priest of the La Plata archdiocese and has yet to receive any official sanctions or penalties from the church.
Cardinal Victor Fernández was Sidders’ archbishop from the start of the criminal process in August 2020 until the summer of 2023, when Fernández left La Plata to become prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. In his public statements, the archbishop emphasized that he was cooperating fully with the prosecutor and had complied with the prosecutor’s request to release Sidders’ canonical file. Throughout the three years, however, the archbishop did not once publicly express concern for the young woman who had come forward or acknowledge the serious nature of her allegations. He issued two formal statements on the case (on August 21, 2020 and December 19, 2020 – see below), and while he eventually removed Sidders from public ministry, he took pains to point out that the step should not be seen as a sanction or an indicator that the priest was guilty of the crimes. At no point in his public statements did he suggest that the victim might be telling the truth.
JULY 2020
News outlets in the city of Puerto Iguazú report on the arrival of a new priest, Padre Raúl Sidders, from the archdiocese of La Plata. In the comments section to one of the articles, some alumni from San Vicente de Paul, the La Plata school where Sidders taught for 18 years, accuse him of inappropriate sexual behavior.
The comments are spotted by “Rocío” (not her real name), a 27-year-old woman who allegedly was sexually abused by Sidders from 2004 to 2007, when she was ages 11 to 14. Rocío reaches out to Iglesia Sin Abusos (Church Without Abuse), a survivors’ support organization, and decides to go public with her story.
Sources: Relatos de exalumnos sobre un sacerdote abusador del colegio San Vicente de Paul de La Plata, Prensa Obrera, 8/31/2020 and Habla la denunciante del cura Sidders: “Abusó de decenas de adolescentes,“ Pulso Noticias, 9/30/2020.
July 31 – Publication of the first news report alleging sexual wrongdoing by Sidders. According to the report, he used obscene references to describe girls and women, and he encouraged boys to masturbate and keep their semen in jars.
Source: Relatos de exalumnos sobre un sacerdote abusador del colegio San Vicente de Paul de La Plata, Prensa Obrera, 7/31/2020.
AUGUST 2020
August 7 – Prensa Obrera publishes Rocío’s testimony of being sexually abused by Sidders beginning in 2004, when she was 11 years old and in the fifth grade at San Vicente de Paul. She says that Sidders would force her hand inside his cassock to feel his erection. The following year, during confession, he allegedly encouraged her to begin masturbating and gave her instructions on how to perform fellatio, proposing that she try it in front of him with a boy in her class. The abuse continued until 2007 (or 2008, per some news accounts), according to Rocío.
Source: “Cuando tenía 11 años empezó a acosarme”, crudo testimonio de otra víctima del cura Raúl Sidders, Prensa Obrera, 8/7/2020
August 7 – Prensa Obrera publishes a statement that it claims is by Archbishop Fernández, defending Sidders and describing as “false” the allegations in the Prensa Obrera article of 7/31/2020. Subsequent reports in other news media carry a statement by the archdiocese stating that the archbishop did not author the statement.
August 20 – Rocío files a criminal complaint against Sidders with the court alleging child sexual abuse from 2004 to 2007, when she was ages 11 to 14.
Source: La Plata: Denuncian por abuso sexual al cura Raúl Sidders, Noticias, 8/21/2020
August 21 – The day after Rocío files criminal charges, Archbishop Fernández publishes an open letter to the faithful of the archdiocese, calling it his “first statement” on the Sidders case. The letter begins:
“As you know, this week an accusation was presented to Justice about the priest Raúl Sidders, who has been living in the province of Misiones for a month. If the complaint is successful, the priest has the right to defend himself.”
The archbishop adds that he has “reprimanded” Sidders “to avoid all inappropriate language, especially towards minors, and particularly any expression referring to women that could be interpreted as contempt, discrimination or misogyny.”
He adds further that “out of prudence and prevention, and without making premature judgments,” he has “recommended” to the bishop of Puerto Iguazú that Sidders not work in schools or with minors.
Significantly, despite the serious allegations by the victim in her criminal complaint as well as her public statements, Archbishop Fernández chooses only to reprimand Sidders rather than removing him from public ministry, as he had the authority to do. His statement includes no expression of concern for the young woman. Nor does he urge witnesses to come forward, express pastoral support for victims, or even acknowledge the grave nature of the accusation — that it concerns child sexual abuse as well as a violation of the confessional.
Source: El arzobispado de La Plata ante las denuncias contra un sacerdote, AICA, 8/22/2020.
SEPTEMBER 2020
Early September – The prosecutor issues an order prohibiting Sidders from leaving the country.
Source: Ordenan que el cura Raúl Sidders no salga del país, Pulso Noticias, 9/3/2020
The publicity about Sidders galvanizes grassroots action in both La Plata and the diocese of Puerto Iguazú. A survivors’ support group sets up a special email address and invites testimonies from any witnesses and victims. According to anonymous accounts cited in Prensa Obrera, he “used the secrets from confessions to torment the students.”
Source: After multiple complaints of abuse against Raúl Sidders, the struggle for justice is underway, Prensa Obrera, 9/7/2020
September 30 – An interview of Rocío in which she describes her experience of abuse and decision to come forward appears in Pulso Noticias.
Source: Habla la denunciante del cura Sidders: “Abusó de decenas de adolescentes”, Pulso Noticias, 9/30/2020
DECEMBER 2020
December 1 – Civil authorities order the arrest of Sidders. Shortly afterwards, he turns himself into the prosecutor’s office, where he answers questions for four hours. He is held in preventive detention in the Petinatto Mayor’s office in La Plata.
Source: Abuso sexual: el cura Sidders está detenido en La Plata, Pulso Noticias, 12/1/2020
December 19 – Four months after being publicly accused of child sex crimes, and two weeks after being arrested and jailed, Sidders finally is restricted by Archbishop Fernández. In what is cited as his second public statement, the archbishop announces that he has notified Sidders “that he must avoid the public celebration of Mass … and any type of activity that may involve minors.”
As he did when he restricted the ministry a year earlier of Padre Eduardo Lorenzo, Archbishop Fernandez takes pains to emphasize that the restrictions are not sanctions or an indicator of guilt:
“This double decision is made in order to free his ministry from all suspicion and is only a ‘preventive’ measure. It does not constitute a sanction that is imposed after the corresponding procedure,” Fernández states.
Source: Arzobispado de La Plata: Aclaraciones y decreto sobre el padre Raúl Sidders, AICA, 12/19/2020
December 24 – La Plata news outlets publish excerpts from the testimony Sidders gave to the prosecutor on December 1.
Source: La declaración del cura Sidders: machista, misógino, egocéntrico y charlatán, Pulso Noticias and La Izquierda Diario, 12/24/2020
JANUARY 2021
Early January – “Rocío” discovers that her identity has been revealed on the website of the La Plata archdiocese, according to La Izquierda Diario.
The post Rocío found dated from mid-December 2020. It was a scanned reproduction of a letter that the National Gendarmerie sent on October 14 to the archbishop to inform him that Sidders had been temporarily removed from the position of military chaplain in Puerto Iguazú, and it revealed the victim’s full name.
NOVEMBER 2021
November 11 – A judge accepts the prosecutor’s request to elevate Sidders’ case to an oral trial, and he rules against a motion by Sidders’ defense team to dismiss the case based on prescription (statute of limitations).
Source: Cura Raúl Sidders, acusado de abuso sexual: la Justicia dijo que el delito no prescribió e irá a juicio oral, Clarín, 11/11/2021
NOVEMBER 2022
November 30 – A judge at the criminal court in La Plata rules that Sidders will go on trial in 2025, between July 10 and 11. He will be tried for crimes of “’seriously outrageous sexual abuse due to its duration in time and circumstances of its commission,’ doubly aggravated ‘for resulting in serious damage to the mental health of the victim and for the perpetrator being a minister of a recognized cult,’ combined with ‘aggravated corruption of minors’ due to the fact that the victim was under 13 years of age.”
Source: Crímenes eclesiásticos. El cura Sidders irá a juicio en 2025 por abusos sexuales en el colegio San Vicente de La Plata, La Izquierda Diario, 12/5/2022