“At no time did I see [the Jesuits involved] with these characteristics that we are putting on them today,” he said in reference to the pedophilia.
“If I had known, not even if I were crazy would I become a Jesuit,” he remarked.
The president of the commission, Sen. Luis Adolfo Flores, asked Mercado about whether he was aware of the history of abuse committed in other countries by Jesuits Alfonso Pedrajas, Carlos Vilamil Olea, Francesc Peris, Francisco Pifarré, Jorge Vila Despujol, Luis María Roma Padrosa, Antonio “Tuco” Gausset Capdevila, and Luis Tó.
“As an institution I don’t know if they had a record,” he replied.
However, he said he knew of them and had a good perception of them, including Alfonso Pedrajas, whose case became widely known when the Spanish newspaper El País published a report in April revealing the existence of a personal diary in which the priest recorded at least 85 incidents where he sexually abused minors during his ministry in Bolivia.
Following that report, more complaints of sexual abuse and cover-up involving different Jesuits began to emerge.