The statement was posted on the Jesuits’ website a day after the Spanish newspaper El País published a report on Roma, the Spanish priest who is alleged to have “abused hundreds of Indigenous girls in Bolivia for decades. He photographed them, recorded them on video, and recorded everything in writing.”
“On this occasion, the order carried out an internal investigation that confirmed the crimes and their cover-up. The Jesuits, after the death of Roma in 2019, kept the findings in a drawer where they have remained unpublished, until today,” the newspaper stated.
In their statement, the Jesuits pointed out that “the current authorities in charge of the government of the Society of Jesus in Bolivia have the moral obligation not to act as was done in the past, worthy of strong condemnation.”
“For this reason, in addition to having actively cooperated with the investigations carried out by the public prosecutor’s office by filing complaints with that agency with the documentation that was available, with the aim of absolute transparency so that the truth of the facts may be known, we urge the state prosecutor’s office to reopen the case of the Catalan Jesuit Luis María Roma and those it deems appropriate,” the statement explained.
The Jesuits made this recommendation “given the evidence of the testimony of victims and the material collected in the raids, to establish the responsibilities of those who may have known the facts and did not act in accordance with the law.”
The Jesuits of Bolivia have ordered that “a commission, led by the current head of Healthy and Safe Environments, a lay professional and psychologist, immediately begin the work of contacting the victims in the Roma case, and others who have made complaints to determine with them the best way to care for their particular situation.”