REPORT: Vatican knew bishop close to Pope took naked selfies…
In August 2017, Pope Francis accepted Zanchetta's resignation after priests in the remote northern Argentine diocese of Oran rebelled under his authoritarian rule and sent reports to the Vatican embassy in May or June of 2017 alleging abuse of power and sexual abuses with adult seminarians, the former vicar said.
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ORAN, Argentina (AP) - The Vatican received information in 2015 and 2017 that an Argentine bishop close to Pope Francis had taken naked selfies, exhibited "obscene" behavior and had been accused of misconduct with seminarians, his former vicar general told The Associated Press, undermining Vatican claims that allegations of sexual abuse were only made a few months ago. Francis accepted Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta's resignation in August 2017, after priests in the remote northern Argentine diocese of Oran complained about his authoritarian rule and a former vicar, seminary rector and another prelate provided reports to the Vatican alleging abuses of power, inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment of adult seminarians, said the former vicar, the Rev. Juan Jose Manzano. Manzano, Oran's vicar general under Zanchetta who is now a parish priest, said he was one of the diocesan officials who raised the alarm about his boss in 2015 and sent the digital selfies to the Vatican.
In an interview with AP in the pews of his St. Cayetano parish in Oran, Manzano said he was one of the three current and former diocesan officials who made a second complaint to the Vatican's embassy in Buenos Aires in May or June of 2017 "when the situation was much more serious, not just because there had been a question about sexual abuses, but because the diocese was increasingly heading into the abyss. Francis had named Zanchetta to Oran, a humble city some 1,650 kilometers (1,025 miles) northwest of Buenos Aires in Salta province, in 2013 in one of his first Argentine bishop appointments as pope. All of which could explain why Francis named him to Oran despite complaints about alleged abuses of power when Zanchetta was in charge of economic affairs in his home diocese of Quilmes, which is in the ecclesial province of Buenos Aires which Bergoglio headed. Manzano said the Vatican had information about sexually inappropriate behavior starting in 2015, with the naked selfies, and reports of alleged misconduct and harassment in May or June of 2017, though he noted they didn't constitute formal canonical complaints.
Manzano said he reported about Zanchetta's alleged abuses of power with the clergy, while the rector reported about the alleged sexual abuses in the seminary. Zanchetta largely disappeared from public view until the Vatican, in an official announcement Dec. 19, 2017, said Francis had named him to the new position of "assessor" in APSA, a key administrative department which manages the Holy See's real estate and financial holdings. The current bishop of Oran, Bishop Luis Antonio Scozzina, declined to speak to AP on camera, saying he wanted to keep silent until the investigation was in the hands of the Holy See.
