The Bolivian Justice sentenced two Spanish Jesuit priests to a year, after finding them guilty of covering up more than 85 sexual abuse against minors committed decades ago by the late P. Alfonso Pedrajas, known as “Father Pica.”
These are Marcos Reolons and Ramón Alaix, 81 and 83 respectively, who starred in the first criminal process in Bolivia against high positions of the Society of Jesus for cover -up of abuse.
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He Alfonso Pedrajas case It was known in 2023, when a report from the Spanish newspaper El País entitled “Diary of a pedophile priest” He revealed the existence of a newspaper where the priest – left in 2009 – recorded the abuses committed three decades ago, in several schools of the Order, especially while working in the boarding school Juan XXIII, in Cochabamba.
According to the formal accusation, Reolons and Alaix directed the Society of Jesus in Bolivia during the years in which the majority of the abuses occurred, and both had knowledge of complaints against Pedrajas, but did not inform justice. Reolons was provincial between 1993 and 1999; and Alaix between 1999 and 2007.
In April 2024, Justice had dictated house prison preventively for both priests.
Last July, at the beginning of the cover -up trial, Marcos Reolons declared: “I am innocent of the facts of which I am accused,” he says The country. Ramón Alaix, on the other hand, also denied the cover -up, and both subtracted credibility to the Pedrajas newspaper, stating that they learned of the case in 2023 when the El País report was published.
“We do not know that this newspaper was written by Pedrajas. We have no guarantees,” Alaix said, sources from the Bolivian courts told El País. In addition, they pointed out that in the writings of the “Father Pica” there is no record that he communicated any crime.
Referents of the Bolivian community of survivors (CBS) followed the criminal process closely and held the sentence: “We celebrated, because for us it is the beginning: the door was opened to direct the long -awaited justice. At the time there were many complaints, we were children, we made us believe that justice was taught by the provincial of the Jesuits, thus manipulated us,” said Wilder Flores, president of that community.
“Now they boast their predisposition of collaboration to justice; but throughout the process we saw their lawyers trying to obstruct justice and deny the truth. We ask the population to be vigilant, we already know what to ask the Jesuits, this just begins,” Flores added.
During the trial, the defense of the priests requested that the crime prescription appeal be taken into account, but the judge denied it.
Edwin Alvarado, Secretary of International Relations of the CBS, thanked the victims “who had the courage to testify their cases in the Public Ministry, to achieve justice.”
Consulted by ACI Press, from the Society of Jesus in Bolivia they clarified that they will not issue public statements, since the defense has appealed two decisions of the judge, so they await the course of the process.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.