The predator that marked the life of a group of friends in the Carmelites of Vila-real: "Every night he took a child"

This is the story of three friends and how their lives were marked by the abuse that two of them suffered in the boarding school of the Carmelite minor seminary in Vila-real (Castellón) in the seventies, at the hands of the center's rector, Francisco Armell Benavent, already deceased.

The three have told their story to EL PAÍS between 2018 and 2022. But of the three friends only one remains.

The other two have died.

Many people who wrote to this newspaper since it began its investigation of pederasty in the Spanish Church, in 2018, did not overcome the pandemic or an illness and did not have time to see their case published, as they wished, because this newspaper Hundreds of messages arrived and the work to publish them has been enormous.

The last of those three friends, who still has the memory of what happened, is called Juan Luis Chueca.

He was not abused, but his friends told him about it.

He is now the one who remembers for the other two, Emilio Alventosa and Julián Sarrión, so that the truth is known and for the memory of his companions.

In addition, EL PAÍS has obtained a fourth testimony from another former student.

Chueca was the first to denounce him to the order in 2021. He also accused a second religious, initials LG, who became superior of the Carmelites.

He was last year in a parish in the center of Madrid and was removed from contact with minors as a precautionary measure.

He also accused a second religious, initials LG, who became superior of the Carmelites.

He was last year in a parish in the center of Madrid and was removed from contact with minors as a precautionary measure.

He also accused a second religious, initials LG, who became superior of the Carmelites.

He was last year in a parish in the center of Madrid and was removed from contact with minors as a precautionary measure.

The congregation, after the complaint, informed this newspaper in June 2021 that it was opening a "thorough" investigation of both complaints and communicating it to the Vatican.

He expressed a "commitment to full transparency."

"As leaders of this ecclesial institution we apologize to the possible victims and their families," said a spokesman.

Those responsible for the order were able to hear the testimonies of the other former students before they died.

However, despite their promise of transparency, the Carmelites have not provided more information and have not responded to questions from this newspaper in the last year.

They do not clarify if the investigations are still open or what the results have been, if more victims have appeared and who is responsible for Armell's cover-up and his transfer abroad: after being denounced by a student in 1976,

He was sent as a missionary and spent more than 30 years in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

The order assured in 2021, the last time he responded to this newspaper, that in the Carmelites "nobody knew anything" about Armell's abuses.

They do not explain whether the other defendant, LG, has admitted the facts, and he has not wanted to give his version of what happened to EL PAÍS either.

Both cases have been included in the two reports of this newspaper, with a total of 351 accusations not published until now, delivered to the Church and the Ombudsman.

The cases that have come to light amount to 840 defendants with at least 1,594 victims, according to the count carried by this newspaper in the absence of official data.

that in the Carmelites “nobody knew anything” about Armell's abuses.

They do not explain whether the other defendant, LG, has admitted the facts, and he has not wanted to give his version of what happened to EL PAÍS either.

Both cases have been included in the two reports of this newspaper, with a total of 351 accusations not published until now, delivered to the Church and the Ombudsman.

The cases that have come to light amount to 840 defendants with at least 1,594 victims, according to the count carried by this newspaper in the absence of official data.

that in the Carmelites “nobody knew anything” about Armell's abuses.

They do not explain whether the other defendant, LG, has admitted the facts, and he has not wanted to give his version of what happened to EL PAÍS either.

Both cases have been included in the two reports of this newspaper, with a total of 351 accusations not published until now, delivered to the Church and the Ombudsman.

The cases that have come to light amount to 840 defendants with at least 1,594 victims, according to the count carried by this newspaper in the absence of official data.

handed over to the Church and the Ombudsman.

The cases that have come to light amount to 840 defendants with at least 1,594 victims, according to the count carried by this newspaper in the absence of official data.

handed over to the Church and the Ombudsman.

The cases that have come to light amount to 840 defendants with at least 1,594 victims, according to the count carried by this newspaper in the absence of official data.

Juan Luis Chueca remembers how he ended up in the seminary: “In the seventies the Carmelites went through the towns of Castellón, Aragón, La Mancha, recruiting boys for the Vila-real boarding school.

They came to my town when they finished fifth, the last year of primary school, in the spring of 1974, and they asked who wanted to go to the beach in summer, they encouraged us to go to courses in July.

That's how they convinced you.

They took us on an excursion to Peñíscola and it was the first time I saw the beach.

They took you to the Onda museum, with stuffed animals and, of course, the world opened up to you.

For us, going to Vila-real was a very important transition, because in our town it was not possible to continue studying.

From sixth grade we all had to leave”.

Juan Luis Chueca, a former student of the Vila-real Carmelites, denounces abuses at the center in the 1970s. Olivia López Bueno

Juan Luis began the course in Vila-real in September 1974, at the age of 12, and there he made friends with two other boys, Emilio Alventosa and Julián Sarrión.

They became inseparable.

With that confidence, one day Emilio told him what had happened to him with Father Francisco Armell Benavent, who was the rector and head of studies.

This religious, born in 1942, was then 32 years old.

Emilio also told EL PAÍS in 2021: “One day I felt sick, I went to the infirmary.

Armell, who took care of all the little ones, from sixth, seventh and eighth, and we depended on him, told me that if I went to his room if I couldn't sleep, he would give me a pill.

Innocent of me, I went one night, he gave me a pill and when I woke up he was still there, in his bed.

It was repeated several times.

With the excuse of seeing if he had phimosis one day he masturbated me,

And I didn't even know what that was.

Every time he called me he tried to take advantage and he was a guy of six feet, very violent, with a reputation for beating wafers like bread”.

Emilio came to spend weekends and some vacations with him in a house he had in his town, Xàbia, because the religious proposed it to his family.

“My mother was cheating on him.

I didn't want to go, but I couldn't refuse.

Then we were there alone or with his brother.

I remember him once almost catching us in bed.”

Juan Luis, who does not hesitate to accuse the friar of being a “predator”, goes further: “Emilio told me that with Armell he was forced to have sexual relations with other friars.

He told me in a very distressing way, he blamed these abuses for the problems he later had in his life”.

with a reputation for sticking hosts like loaves.”

Emilio came to spend weekends and some vacations with him in a house he had in his town, Xàbia, because the religious proposed it to his family.

“My mother was cheating on him.

I didn't want to go, but I couldn't refuse.

Then we were there alone or with his brother.

I remember him once almost catching us in bed.”

Juan Luis, who does not hesitate to accuse the friar of being a “predator”, goes further: “Emilio told me that with Armell he was forced to have sexual relations with other friars.

He told me in a very distressing way, he blamed these abuses for the problems he later had in his life”.

with a reputation for sticking hosts like loaves.”

Emilio came to spend weekends and some vacations with him in a house he had in his town, Xàbia, because the religious proposed it to his family.

“My mother was cheating on him.

I didn't want to go, but I couldn't refuse.

Then we were there alone or with his brother.

I remember him once almost catching us in bed.”

Juan Luis, who does not hesitate to accuse the friar of being a “predator”, goes further: “Emilio told me that with Armell he was forced to have sexual relations with other friars.

He told me in a very distressing way, he blamed these abuses for the problems he later had in his life”.

“My mother was cheating on him.

I didn't want to go, but I couldn't refuse.

Then we were there alone or with his brother.

I remember him once almost catching us in bed.”

Juan Luis, who does not hesitate to accuse the friar of being a “predator”, goes further: “Emilio told me that with Armell he was forced to have sexual relations with other friars.

He told me about it in a very distressing way, he attributed the problems that he later had in his life to these abuses”.

“My mother was cheating on him.

I didn't want to go, but I couldn't refuse.

Then we were there alone or with his brother.

I remember him once almost catching us in bed.”

Juan Luis, who does not hesitate to accuse the friar of being a “predator”, goes further: “Emilio told me that with Armell he was forced to have sexual relations with other friars.

He told me about it in a very distressing way, he attributed the problems that he later had in his life to these abuses”.

The third friend of the group, Julián, also told this newspaper that he suffered Armell's abuse: "I didn't tell anyone until I was 45 or 50 years old, there's like a cloth that gets over your eyes and you don't see it .

He was not traumatic, I thought he loved me and that he was chosen.

They always go to the weakest, the quietest.

He used to call one to his room from time to time.

He called me once for a talk, because I had a hard time making friends, he was an introvert.

He had a bookcase that separated the bed and sink from his office.

He pressed me against the bookcase, grabbed me by the ears, squeezing my lobes and said: 'Little one, do you know what the most insensitive part of the body is?

Is'.

He was squeezing my earlobes and all of a sudden he was kissing me on the mouth, snogging me as he rubbed against me.”

Julián was sure that “the community of priests knew all that,

But it didn't stop him."

She remembered what nights were like at boarding school: “The bedrooms were separate.

There was a general one, another smaller one and another section that was the one that this gentleman chose, a cabin with four bunks.

We'd go to bed at half past nine and he'd arrive at 11 or 12, every night he'd pick up a boy and take him to the back of the bedroom.

I covered myself completely and I didn't want to see anything, I didn't want to be there.

In a camp in Burriana one shared a tent with him;

the favorite.

He had several favourites”.

every night he would pick up a boy and take him to the back of the bedroom.

I covered myself completely and I didn't want to see anything, I didn't want to be there.

In a camp in Burriana one shared a tent with him;

the favorite.

He had several favourites”.

every night he would pick up a boy and take him to the back of the bedroom.

I covered myself completely and I didn't want to see anything, I didn't want to be there.

In a camp in Burriana one shared a tent with him;

the favorite.

He had several favourites”.

Group of students from the Carmelite boarding school in Vila-real in 1975, with their faces visible, Juan Luis Chueca, on the left, and his friends Emilio, in the center, and Julián, on the right.

Emilio, in his story, also confirmed that Armell had several dams: “I was not the only one he abused.

On excursions he raffled who went with him in the car and who slept with him, whoever guessed right a number that he thought won, and he chose who he wanted.

But one day in 1976, Armell met a boy who resisted him.

He was not intimidated, he told his family and a scandal arose.

In fact, Armell left the center.

As in many other cases, the solution was to send him abroad as a missionary, to the Dominican Republic.

A fourth former student, AMG, lived that episode closely, because the boy who confronted the friar was a friend of his, now deceased: “At night he always took someone to his room, and we were about 80 children in the bedroom.

One day it was my friend's turn and he told me that he tried to abuse him.

He began to touch her genitals and told her to touch him too, that nothing was wrong, that God had made us like this and it was not bad at all.

He zoomed out of there.

The next day he told us, and Armell noticed.

What he did was that in the final exams he gave him the questions, to shut him up, and my friend went with them to the prior, to use them as evidence and tell him about the abuse, because if he didn't know they wouldn't believe him”.

Julián Sarrión recalled that Armell then became very nervous and called him to his room:

In May, the feast of San Pascual Baylon was the day families went to boarding school, and then the boy who had denounced Armell told his older brother, and a scandal broke out.

The religious disappeared from one day to the next: "They told us that he was going on missions, but the whole school knew what was happening," says AMG, his friend, the one who had denounced the abuse, left the school at the end of the course .

Emilio remembered that later a Carmelite came from outside to give them a talk: "It was to defend him, saying that this was normal, that they were signs of affection."

In any case, as AMG recalls, Armell returned the following year and he was so panicked that he dropped out of school in the middle of the year.

“He was very violent, he hit us every day and punished us for picking up stones, or in the garden, sometimes he would put a wooden block around your neck.

He suddenly reappeared and we gathered all the students to welcome him.

I abandoned my studies days later, I told my parents that I didn't want to study anymore, that they put me to work in whatever it was.

The truth is that the other priests were good teachers, good people and tried to make life more pleasant for us.

But the damage caused by this pig could not, and cannot, be alleviated.

Father Armell abused several colleagues, and my friend was the only one who had the courage to denounce him.

others, like me,

We didn't have that courage and we tried to cope with the situation as best we could.

We were between 11, 12 and 13 years old and we were away from our families.

Fear and shame could, and still can, with us."

Some of the companions of these former students ended up being priests and members of the order, they are still in it today, and therefore they know Armell's case perfectly.

Facade of the Carmelite school in Vila-real, where former students have denounced sexual abuse in their childhood in the seventies.Ángel Sánchez

But there is a second, more complex story.

Juan Luis Chueca also reported to the order that another professor and religious from the seminary, LG, had relations with one of the students and even spent the nights together.

This former colleague from the seminary has acknowledged to EL PAÍS that it was so, but he did not consider it abuse, because for him, in his memory, it was a consensual relationship, a love story that he lived in boarding school and in which he took refuge before Armell's harassment.

In fact, he relates that he maintained contact with this religious for years, already in adulthood.

However, despite how he tells it, for Juan Luis there is no doubt that it was a crime, since he was an adult over 30 years old having sex with a child of 12 or 13, who was also isolated in a hostile environment. and he was vulnerable.

That is why he also denounced it to the order, along with Armell's abuses.

After the complaint, the Carmelites removed him as a precautionary measure.

Then the order has remained silent until today about its investigation of this case and does not clarify whether or not this religious admits the accusations.

Chueca has also not heard from the Carmelites after his complaint, they do not pick up his phone or answer his messages and he no longer has any confidence in his investigation.

But at least he wants to make it public.

“I have no grudge against the school or the Carmelites, who gave me a good education, but I do have pain for what some of them did.

That is why I encourage other colleagues to report.

I do this not only for myself, but for Emilio, for Julián, for all the others.

My friends wanted it to be made public, unfortunately they haven't had time to see it."

The information on the career of Francisco Armell that is collected on the internet from the Carmelites and local Valencian media indicates that, before ending up at the Vila-real seminary, in the sixties he was a priest in a parish in Madrid, Nuestra Señora de Sonsoles, in the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood.

Later, after leaving Vila-real at the end of the seventies, he went on a mission to Jimaní, in the Dominican Republic, on the border with Haiti.

Years later he changed his destination, to Puerto Rico, first to Morovís, and then to Ciales, two mountain towns.

He ended up in the mid-eighties in the country's capital, San Juan.

He lived in Residencial Público Luis Llorens Torres, a degraded area of ​​official housing, where he ran the Sagrada Familia church, which also had a parish school.

Around 2007 he returned to Spain,

for health problems.

In 1999, the City Council of Xàbia, the town of his birth, had awarded him the Vila de Xàbia October 9 Prize for Civic Values.

If you know of any case of sexual abuse that has not seen the light of day, write to us with your complaint at

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