The case of alleged sexual assaults by members of the Catholic Church in Colombia, led by journalist Juan Pablo Barrientos, has a new chapter. The Constitutional Court forced the presentation of the documents that outline the aberrant cases.
Following requests from journalist Juan Pablo Barrientos, the Court once again demanded that the clerical entity answer the questions about the alleged cases of sexual violence.
Two books, hundreds of complaints and victims have the Catholic Church in Colombia mired in serious trouble with the authorities. Particularly in this country, many priests have been reported for alleged cases of sexual assault. The case, which has spread to the highest chambers of the Vatican, has led to the expulsion of some priests by Pope Francis himself.
As reviewed Juan Pablo Barrientos in his book “Let the children come to me”, for several years he had asked the clerical authorities to present him with the files and documents on the complaints of sexual harassment or carnal access abusive, but due to the refusal of the religious, the complaints reached criminal courts.
In total, so far, 915 priests are reported who are apparently linked to cases of sexual violence, some have been “freed” because they died or because they were removed from office. In addition, many victims and relatives have preferred not to delve into their tragedy and bear his sentence without filing the complaint.
Precisely, on March 5, 2020, the Archdiocese of Medellín issued a statement, after the first decision of the Constitutional Courtthat ordered him to hand over files on these cases of pederasty. At that time, they assured that there are no secret files, but that they do handle private documents, protected by the Habeas Data Law, so they are not obliged to publish them. At another point, they stated that they did not there is a network of pederasty.
“Some of these documents contain private or reserved information that concerns their own personnel and that information is handled strictly subject to the provisions of the Habeas Data Law. There is no pederasty network in the Archdiocese of Medellin or in the Church in Colombia. There have been some specific cases, which we absolutely deplore and reject.”
The church ruled in 2020 on the alleged cases of pederasty.
Despite the refusals and the obstacles, Barrientos did not give up, and again the Constitutional Court< /b>, after the request issued since February 19, 2019, and with a presentation by Gloria Stella Ortiz, unanimously made the decision: the Archdiocese of Medellín must deliver, in a term no longer than 48 hours, the “secret files” that relate to priests in cases of pedophilia.
“The Archdiocese of Medellín effectively disregarded the right to request information by not giving it semi-private data that it has in its files on priests probably involved in sexual crimes against children and adolescents.”
In fact, the high court determined that the information has important constitutional relevance. In addition, the church has the obligation to answer all the requests that Barrientos has made over all these years.
“The request presented on this occasion has special characteristics that relate it to With the materialization of the right to freedom of information in the head of a journalist, it deserves special attention from the State (…) If it is a person with social relevance due to his position or position, it is even clearer that there is fewer restrictions to access information related to sexual violence against children and adolescents.”
Given this ruling, in theory the files should be delivered very soon, according to the same Barrientos, in those rest the complaints against minors in several cities of the country. “We have reached this point because the archbishops of Medellín, Bogotá and Cali consider that canon law is above ordinary law and refuse to comply with court orders,” added Juan Pablo Barrientos.