Monster Bishop protected by Pope. Full text of explosive document from 2019.

Cathcon: 

Two questions arise from the article below and the translation of the document.

1) Why is international media not giving the highest priority to investigating the systematic cover-up of abuse by Pope Francis?

2) Why does the Pope not follow the example of his pious predecessor and resign.  Never has there been a more ignorant, weak and malign Pope in history.  He said at the beginning of his reign, he wanted to make a mess and what a mess he has made.  Pray God that his successor can begin to restore the damage and with God's grace, he will.

New document in the Zanchetta case complicates the Church's case

The Vatican was aware of the allegations against the ex-bishop before giving him a position, they say, and he is accused of abuse and commercial mismanagement with the Pope's "endorsement".

Internal Church documents show that Church authorities, including Pope Francis, were aware of allegations of sexual abuse and economic mismanagement against the now ex-Bishop of Oran, Gustavo Zanchetta, before giving him a high position in the Vatican and transferring him to Rome. The religious sent intimate photos from his mobile phone, harassed seminarians, failed to register the sale of an important property and handled funds discretely, according to the first formal complaint in the ecclesiastical sphere made by five well-known priests from the northern city, a presentation to which El Tribuno had access.

Zanchetta is facing a criminal case for sexual abuse (Cathcon: he was found guilty and placed merely under house arrest- friends in high places by the look of it) following a judicial complaint that was filed days ago, after the case became public. But suspicions against Zanchetta have arisen within the Church since 2105, as described in the internal complaint.

After a secretary of the Diocese discovered sexual photos that Zanchetta had sent and received from his mobile phone, priests alerted the authorities. According to the text, after that the Pope called the then bishop to talk about it, but he was not removed from office. Then in 2016, three of his vicars general and two monsignors made a formal internal complaint to the Nunciature, insisting on Zanchetta's "strange attitudes" towards seminarians such as "watching them at night by walking around their rooms at late hours with a torch, or asking for massages, or going into their rooms and sitting on their beds, or inciting them to drink alcoholic beverages, or certain preferences for some more graceful ones".

This accusation did not have any internal repercussions within the church. In a second internal accusation, which was made in 2017, alleged cases of sexual abuse of seminarians are already explicit. Zanchetta then had to leave the Diocese. However, no ecclesiastical investigation was initiated, he was not denounced to the justice system, nor was he removed, but he was given a position in the Vatican and moved to the same residence where the Pope lives.

"In the city of San Ramón de la Nueva Orán, on the twenty-second day of the month of April of the year two thousand and sixteen, at noon, the Vicars General, Monsignor Gabriel Acevedo and Juan José Manzano, the Rector of the Major Seminary of St. John XXIII, Father Martín Alarcón, Monsignor Diego Pietro Calvisi, and Monsignor Andrés Buttu to comply with the request of His Most Reverend Excellency Monsignor Paul Emile Tscherrig, Apostolic Nuncio of His Holiness in Argentina", begins the internal denunciation of the five religious.

The document, written at the request of the Pope's representative in the country, Emile Tscherrig, questions the fact that the first warning was not given due process. In the three-page report, the five high-ranking religious denounce that on "22 September 2015", the Chancellor Secretary of the Diocese, Luis Díaz, told them that he had found "selfies" of Zanchetta on his mobile phone "naked and masturbating".

Díaz discovered these images by chance, when the former bishop asked him to download photos of institutional activities, which appeared to have been sent from his mobile phone. He also said that he found pornographic material that had been sent to him and had not been erased from his memory.

With these elements, the religious say that they contacted the former Bishop of Orán, Marcelo Colombo, who referred them to the Archbishop of Salta, Mario Cargnello. "Zanchetta being a personal friend of the Holy Father, he (Cargnello) decided to communicate with the Cardinal Primate of Argentina, Monsignor Mario Poli, and asked Father Gabriel to call the Nunciature, informing that the Cardinal was in possession of material containing confidential information of a very serious nature about the Bishop of Oran", the document states.

A few days after the photographs came to light, in October 2015, the then Bishop was called by the Pope, according to the report. "We stress that this is in no way a photomontage, as the Bishop argued on his return from Rome, since everything that can be seen in the photographs, bed, sheets, wardrobe, are those of his room".

Díaz, who discovered Zanchetta's controversial selfies in a signed and sealed letter, also stressed that they were not fake. In that document, which formed part of the first complaint, the ex-Bishop claimed to have Francis' backing. According to him, Zanchetta told him that in Rome he had been shown the photographs and that "he was not worried about this because he has the backbone to stand up to it and come out on top".

The former Bishop also reportedly told his then secretary that "by providence the images did not arrive at the Nunciature, but directly to Rome where he has the personal support of Pope Francis and Cardinal Primate Mario Poli".

It was never officially known what the Pope and Zanchetta talked about in that meeting because of the photographs. But the former Bishop remained in office for two more years, until 2017, when the three Vicars involved in the first complaint filed a second report on sexual abuse. After the allegations within the Church and the case exploded internationally, two seminarians brought criminal proceedings against Zanchetta for simple sexual abuse.

The description of the internal complaint is in line with what José Luis Manzano, one of the priests who participated in the presentation, told El Tribuno. Manzano said that since 2015 the authorities had been approached with "elements" that implicated Zanchetta. Manzano indicated, in an interview broadcast weeks ago, that in the first complaint photographs were attached and the ex-bishop was called by his "spiritual father". He said that in the second complaint, from 2017, letters were presented from seminarians who had allegedly been abused.

With this latest evidence, Zanchetta was called back by Francis. "He said to him: 'Yes, Holy Father, I am ill and I need treatment, I am resigning. The Pope said: we are going to give you treatment and it seems to me that you cannot govern anything. He came and resigned," Manzano said of Zanchetta's departure. A few months later, the former Bishop of Oran was appointed advisor to the Vatican Real Estate office. The Pope "invented an advisory position for him that never existed", according to Manzano. Thus the ex-Bishop left behind the accusations in Oran and moved to Santa Marta, the residence where Francis lives in Rome, after claiming that he was leaving due to health problems.

After the case was uncovered by El Tribuno, Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said that the allegations of sexual abuse against Zanchetta became known after his appointment in Rome at the end of last year. According to Gisotti, Zanchetta had asked Francis to let him leave the diocese of Oran because he had difficult relations with his priests: "At the time of his resignation, there were accusations against him of authoritarianism, but there were no accusations of sexual abuse against him," he said.

Manzano, one of the complainants, has now confirmed his statements in official documents, which demolish the arguments of the Church leadership that the accusations against one of the Argentine priests close to the Pope were unknown.

Source

Translation of the document

On Monday, September 21, 2015, in the afternoon, the Diocesan Bishop, Monsignor Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta, asked me to copy some photographs from his phone to upload to Facebook that had been sent to him by WhatsApp application, referring to the signature of an agreement in the City of Salta and others regarding the repair of the bell tower of the Cathedral of Oran.

I connected his telephone to the chancery computer via the USB cable, as you usually did with your camera and cell telephone, copied the telephone folder where the images were located and pasted it on the computer desktop and immediately returned the telephone to the Bishop.

When copying the images I begin to separate them into folders by events... CONIN - signing of the agreement, Cathedral - Arrangement of the bell tower, La Unión - Merendero and so on while I eliminated the repeated and blurry images.  I then reached the pornographic images of explicit homosexual sex between young people and the naked selfie photographs and Monsignor Gustavo Zanchetta exposing his private parts, shared by WhatsApp with third parties.  The photographs of the Agreement were published together with the Prot. note N. 098/15 on the Diocese's Facebook page.  The images of the Cathedral bell tower were not.

With the discovery of the images, I didn't know what to do, there were only two more lay people in the administration, to whom I didn't say anything at all, at first I was afraid.   I moved the folder with all the images to another folder on the same computer and locked it, for security.

The days passed, on the weekend I sent a text message to Monsignor Gabriel Acevedo, one of the Vicar Generals, asking him when he was going to come, to which he replied, "I'm coming next week, what do you need?" I replied, "I have to ask you some questions, nothing urgent."  The other Vicar General, Monsignor Juan José Manzano, was absent from the diocese.  I turned to Bishop Gabriel Acevedo as he was the Vicar General and for the content of the images in which young people are observed and related it to the seminary, now that it operates next to the Curia and the Bishop's house.  His relationship with the seminarians and the fear that something would happen to the boys, not being able to remain indifferent and looking the other way.

On Tuesday, Bishop Gabriel Acevedo arrived mid-morning and we talked about the news related to the daily activities of the Curia.  That week the Bishop had travelled to the Province of Santa Fe in order to acquire a bronze bell, from the Luis Bellini company, to replace the damaged one in the Cathedral's bell tower.  I returned on Thursday.

I told him I want you to see this, he sat down at my desk, I left him alone in the chancellery office, about 10 minutes went by when I came back, the Father asked me where I obtained those photographs. I explained to him how it was. And I asked him what do you do in these cases? He told me the truth is that he did not know what to do, given the truthfulness of the images where you can see the bishop in his full body. He told me to treat the matter with the utmost discretion due to the seriousness of the matter. The next day, Bishop Gabriel Acevedo told mewhen I consulted him, it is a serious matter, I want you to make a copy on a USB drive, I am going to Salta with Father Martin Alarcón, rector of the diocesan major seminary, to speak to Archbishop Mario Cargnello and I will take the copy to him.

The Bishop, Monsignor Gustavo Zanchetta received a telephone communication at noon on Saturday 3 October 2015, he told us that he had to urgently appear in Rome and did not know the reasons.  People circulated rumours that his unforeseen trip was to participate in the Family Synod, due to his obvious closeness to Pope Francis.

His return to the Diocese took place on Thursday 8 October at approximately 7 pm. He greeted me normally, called me into his office for a few minutes and made a short introduction to the subject, the cost of the trip.... He asked me if I knew anything about it, I told him that I knew nothing.  

He said something about why we had agreed with Bishop Gabriel Acevedo that we knew nothing about the photographs, following the recommendation of the bishop who intervened in the case and fearing the reaction of Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, whom I got to know over time in his way of relating to priests and some other souls with a dominant, obsessive and vindictive personality. Gabriel Acevedo told me that the material is in the hands of those who should be, we did the right thing, may the Lord help us and enlighten those who should act so that they do the best for the good of the Church.

When I refused,  the Bishop told me that if it had been him who had found this material, the first thing he would have done, as in this case, was to ask the Bishop if they were really his.  He went on to insist that he was told that the Chancellor Secretary of the Diocese took to the Curia of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires an envelope containing a USB drive to be given to Archbishop Mario Poli.  He told me that he was shown the photographs in Rome, that there were some images in which he appeared, such as the one where he was hugging a child, and that he continued with others until he reached the pornographic images that he did not want to continue seeing, that they were not of him, that they were a photomontage, that they were trickery. 

In the City of San Ramón de la Nueva Orán, on the twenty-second day of the month of April two thousand sixteen, the Vicar Generals Monsignor Gabriel Gabriel, Juan Acevedo and Juan José Manzano, Rector Martin Alarcón, Monsignor Diego Pietro Calvisi and Monsignor Andrés Buttu meet at 12:00 noon to comply with the request of His Reverend Excellency Monsignor Paul Emile Tscherrig, Apostolic Nuncio of His Holiness in Argentina.

Luis Amancio Diaz, while fulfilling the request of Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, Bishop of Nueva Orán, to download photos of the CONIN centre in Rivadavia, and of the lowering of the old bells of the Cathedral from his mobile phone, he proceeded to download the entire photo gallery and then proceeded to select the best ones and save them on the Diocese's computer. As he went about this task of selecting some photos, he unintentionally discovered a large number of pornographic images of explicit homosexual sex between young people (received from another person via WhatsApp, which were recorded in the gallery even though they could be deleted from the chat) and another large number of "selfie" photos, self-photographing with the "selfie" system of his mobile telephone, naked, showing his genitals and in masturbatory attitudes (sent from his mobile phone to another person), which were recorded in the gallery even though they could be deleted from the chat.

We would like to point out that it is in no way a photomontage, as the Bishop argued on his return from Rome, since everything that can be seen in the photographs (bed, sheets, wardrobe, are those of his room). Scandalised as a layman, confused by this serious situation, and not knowing what to do, because the images belonged to the Bishop, he kept the secret for several days, until finally, moved by a growing anguish, he called Bishop Acevedo, and asked him to do him the favour of seeing the images downloaded from the Bishop's mobile phone on the Chancellery's computer, leaving him alone, with the instruction to pass on the images until the end.  Father Acevedo went through the images until he found these indecent images.  After a while, the Chancellor returned to the office and asked him: "What do you do with this guy?  Father Gabriel begged him to keep this serious and delicate matter confidential and to carry out the relevant consultations.

Father Gabriel consulted the two oldest and most venerable priests of the Diocese, Bishop Diego Calvisi and Bishop Andrés Buttu, and the Rector of the Major Seminary, Father Martin Alarcón, who, taking cognizance of the matter, realised the seriousness of the matter because the introductory course, lacking its own physical space, functioned in the Bishop's house, which made it urgent to take measures in this regard.  Marcelo Colombo to ask for advice regarding this case.  Following the advice of Monsignor Colombo, they spoke by telephone with the Metropolitan Archbishop, Monsignor Mario Antonio Cargnello, presenting their concern, and he requested that they promptly bring a USB drive with a record of the material found. The following day they did so, handing a copy to the Archbishop, who reviewed it together with the two aforementioned priests, and upon noticing the seriousness of the situation, concerning Monsignor Zanchetta, a personal friend of the Holy Father, decided to communicate with the Cardinal Primate of Argentina, Monsignor Poli, and asked Father Gabriel to call the Nunciature, informing them that the Cardinal Primate was in possession of material containing confidential information of a very serious nature about the Bishop of Nueva Orán.

It should be added that on one occasion prior to these events, while the bishop was in the administration office of this Diocese, in the presence of two lay members of the Curia, Manuel Alberto Guerrero and José Saavedra, the bishop's mobile phone, which he carried in his trouser pocket, began to emit sounds like gasps and exclamations typical of explicit sex videos, which he wanted to explain by saying "they are things they send you".

He even had strange attitudes towards the seminarians beforehand, such as, for example, on some occasions, when they were without the presence of the Rector, as night watchmen walking around their rooms at high noon with a torch, or asking for massages, or going into their rooms at bedtime and sitting on their beds, or inciting them to drink alcoholic beverages, or certain preferences for some more graceful ones, and an obsessive omnipresence in the life of the seminary, causing them to feel suffocated, all this according to the comments of the seminarians themselves.

With regard to the relationship between the Bishop and his priests, there is widespread unease about the number of untimely decisions that directly affect the life and ministry of the priests, such as sudden and repeated changes of assignment, in some cases coerced, generating a great deal of uncertainty, fear and suspicion among the clergy. During this time a religious congregation left the Diocese and the pastoral contract with a priest from the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires was interrupted, both situations linked to each other and which provoked reactions among the people that were responded to by the Bishop with versions that did not correspond to reality.

We are also concerned about the Bishop's overtly close relationship with the provincial and municipal government.  The latter finances the Bishopric with large sums of money (handled at the Bishop's discretion), which is why, among other things, the Monsignor, at provincial election time, suggested to the Seminarians that "we are pro-government" and "you must vote for the governor".

Finally, and complying with the requirement to inform about the origin of the funds with which the seminary was built and the work on the Cathedral was carried out, it is reported that there was a sale of a property in Aguas Blancas for us 200,000 (a subject discussed in the college of consultants) and the sale of a property donated in Buenos Aires for us$ 800,000, according to the bishop, because he did not present proof of that sale and that the college was not consulted nor was authorisation requested from the Holy See, because according to the bishop, His Holiness personally suggested to him that he should not make it appear anywhere in order to avoid the Diocese being considered as less needy.

Signatures of five clerics

Monsignor Diego Calvis

Monsignor Andres Buttu

Monsignor Gabriel Acevedo 

Juan José Manzano

Martin Alarcón 

The route of the complaint against Zanchetta It is the first accusation of "selfies". Then came the abuses denounced criminally.

1 21 SEPTEMBER 2015 the former chancellor of the Archbishopric of Oran, Luis Amancio Diaz, finds photos of Zanchetta naked and masturbating, as well as discovering visits to gay online portals. Gustavo Zanchetta Former Bishop of the City of Oran.

Monsignor Diego Calvis

Monsignor Andres Buttu

Monsignor Gabriel Acevedo Former vicar

Juan José Manzano Former vicar

Martin Alarcón Former vicar

In 2015 they report the photos to their superiors. In April 2016 they submit a report at the request of the nunciature in which they denounce the harassment of seminarians and the economic abuses of Zanchetta. The report had no repercussions within the Church. Marcelo Colombo Monsignor (ex-bishop of Oran). The five religious consulted him about the process and he referred them to Cargnello.

2 Mario Cargnello Archbishop of Salta. He sent the photos to Cardinal Primate Mario Poli and asked the Nunciature to be notified.

3 Mario Poli Cardinal Primate Archbishop of Buenos Aires 

4 Pope Francis In October 2015, the Pope sent for Zanchetta and he reportedly told him that the photos were "trickery”.

.From today until 24 February, the first Synod of Bishops on sexual abuse will be held at the Vatican.

Many more articles on Zanchetta and the protection he enjoys from the Pope