Court permits Bishop Zanchetta to travel to Rome for treatment; canonical advocate laicized
December 05, 2024
Overturning a lower court decision, an Argentine appellate court has permitted Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, convicted in 2022 of sexually abusing two seminarians, to travel to a hospital in Rome for medical treatment. The lower court had authorized the prelate to receive treatment in Argentina, though not outside the country.
The prelate had governed the Diocese of Orán, a remote diocese in Salta Province in northern Argentina, from August 2013 until August 2017, when Pope Francis accepted his resignation, offered putatively for health reasons. In December 2017, Pope Francis appointed Zanchetta the assessor of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), which manages the Holy See’s real estate and movable assets, even though Orán diocesan officials had three times complained to the Vatican, alleging the bishop committed financial and sexual impropriety, including the sexual harassment of seminarians.
In 2022, the prelate was sentenced by an Argentine court to four and one-half years of prison. Four months later, his sentence was commuted to house arrest in a diocesan convent for health reasons.
Reacting to the appellate court decision, Kevin Montes, a former Orán seminarian, said:
He was in a convent with all the benefits and privileges that any other ordinary citizen who has been convicted does not have. Why did he leave? Who authorized all this? Bishop Luis Antonio Scozzina [his successor in Orán], perhaps? Who pays the funds for this trip? The Church? Who pays for it? Could it be Pope Francis himself? Or maybe the lady who goes to Mass every Sunday and puts her last 100 pesos, her last two coins, pays for it.
In reporting on the appellate court’s decision, La Nación also reported that Pope Francis has laicized Father Javier Belda Iniesta, a Spanish diocesan priest who has served as Zanchetta’s canonical advocate and spokesman—thus allowing Belda to marry in the Church. Last month, then-Father Belda spoke at a press conference in Mexico City in his capacity as the Pontiff’s delegate to the Pope Francis Memorial Foundation, at the launch of the Pope Francis Memorial app.
A priest of the Diocese of Murcia (Spain) and a prolific scholar, Father Belda worked as Dean of the Faculty of Human, Canonical, and Religious Sciences at the Catholic University of Murcia (Spain), as well as the international coordinator and fourth-ranking official at the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences, following its refounding by Pope Francis.
In 2021, the Catholic University of Murcia fired Father Belda when university officials found they were unable to confirm he had earned two of the degrees listed on his résumé. Nonetheless, Father Belda remained Bishop Zanchetta’s canonical advocate and spokesman.
In June 2022—three months after Zanchetta’s conviction in a civil court—Father Belda conducted a preliminary investigation into alleged canonical offenses committed by persons who had testified against Zanchetta. Father Belda noted he was conducting the investigation by decree of the Holy See. Belda’s dual role as Zanchetta’s canonical advocate and as canonical investigator of those who testified against Zanchetta was seen by observers inside and outside Argentina as a blatant conflict of interest.
In the summer of 2022, Pope Francis named Father Belda his delegate to broker disputes between Archbishop Mario Cargnello of Salta, Argentina, and local Discalced Carmelite nuns, in part over the nuns’ support of an alleged visionary who claimed she was receiving apparitions of the Virgen del Cerro (Virgin of the Hill), whose shrine has attracted up to a million pilgrims a year. Father Belda’s appointment as the Pope’s delegate also raised questions of a conflict of interest, as Archbishop Cargnello had provided crucial assistance to Zanchetta’s accusers. Archbishop Cargnello was later convicted in civil court of gender violence against the nuns.
For all current news, visit our News home page.
All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a current donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!
