Bolivia: Protests against sexual crimes perpetrated by priests

Hundreds of people protested Thursday in Bolivia's three main cities against sexual crimes perpetrated by Catholic priests against children, after recent revelations about decades-old cases.

The demonstrations took place in the evening in the cities of La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, the most populous in the country, with cries of "justice, justice".

Protection of superiors

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We will be hell for pedophiles," proclaimed a sign in Cochabamba. "No, no, no, no I don't want to forgive rapists just because they wear a cassock," protesters chanted in La Paz.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais revealed in late April that the late priest Alfonso Pedrajas allegedly abused more than 80 minors in Bolivia from the early 1970s. The newspaper had access to the diary in digital form of the Spaniard who died in Bolivia in 2009, at the age of 66. In it, the Jesuit priest says he "has hurt many people, too many" people, he writes. He also says he was protected by his superiors.

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The priest had settled in the country in the early 1970s, working in several schools until a few months before his death. He allegedly committed most of his abuses at the John XXIII school in Cochabamba. This boarding school welcomed children from disadvantaged backgrounds and rural areas.

Following these revelations, at least nine complaints were filed in Bolivia for acts perpetrated by priests, including Mr. Pedrajas and four other Spanish religious, Luis Maria Roma, Alejandro Mestre, Antonio Gausset and Jorge Vila Despujol, all of whom are now deceased. The secretary general of the Episcopal Conference of Bolivia (CEB), Giovani Arana, admitted Wednesday in a statement that the victims had "found a Church that remained deaf to their suffering," instead of "giving them the protection and care they deserved."