When the scandal broke of a criminal case against the former head of the Truth Commission of Colombia (CEV), Francisco de Roux, for covering up sexual abuse,[1] I took the decision not to write anything about the issue. Not because it was not an important issue, but rather because over the years I have criticised the political positions of the public figure, his promotion of monocultures, forgiving the paramilitaries, apologising to the military and the business community and a whole host of other issues. And of course I don’t share his concept of the truth regarding the conflict, and there is no lack of people who think my criticisms are a personal conflict. I didn’t want to be accused of attacking him in this case on almost personal grounds on an issue not directly linked to the armed conflict. Though it is worth pointing out that the issue of sexual violence itself is part of the armed conflict as such and even the Truth Commission that De Roux presided over dealt with the issue in its report.[2]
But having seen how the great and the good in Colombian society, journalists, NGOs and even ex truth commissioners rallied round the personality and the motives offered for this support, I could not remain silent. It is no longer about De Roux, but rather about how victims of abuse are listened to by the Catholic Church in Colombia. I should highlight some elements of the story that are not only incontrovertible but are accepted by all, including De Roux himself.
- Father Darío Chavarriaga abused Fernando Llano and his seven sisters between 1976 and 1979.
- In 2014 Fernando Llano reported the facts to Francisco de Roux who at the time held the post of Provincial of the Jesuits, i.e. Commander in Chief in Colombia.
- De Roux opened up a canonical investigation against the pederast priest and sure enough found that there had been abuse.
- De Roux punished him by ordering him not to take part in pastoral duties and forcing him to confine himself to a convent.
- The priest confessed.
- De Roux did not inform the Prosecutor’s Office nor any other authority that safeguards children.
- The last point is controversial as De Roux has given various excuses to justify his decisions, amongst them that he did so at the request of the victims themselves. This the heart of the matter for some, though there are other elements that deserve to be borne in mind such as how real the “punishment” imposed was.
Throughout the conflict, public personalities like De Roux, journalists and human rights defenders, amongst them those who have rallied to his cause, said that we have to listen to the victims, understand the horror of what they had lived through and make their voices heard. They also talked of how it was important not to accept the buts of the victimisers. Their slogan was Neither Forgive, Nor Forget!
Now they say the opposite, and what most provoked me into writing something is that they defend De Roux with similar language to that used by Uribe, Santos and other presidents when they defended soldiers involved in massacres. One of the first out of the hatches in defence of De Roux with a speed and promptness that would leave Uribe in the shade, was Patricia Lara Salive writing for the El Espectador. She fully accepted the version of events as narrated by De Roux in which the victims rejected the offer to file criminal charges against Chavarriaga.[3] The headline says it all, We Stand By You, Francisco de Roux. She does not stand by the truth, nor the investigation and less still with the victims, but rather with one of the most powerful priests in the country. De Roux’s friends have a right to believe him, to believe in him even, as his friends. What they can’t and shouldn’t do is use their platforms as public personalities to call into question the testimony of the victims. She describes De Roux as being of high moral character and questions those who report it now, a common tactic against those who report priests for abuse or covering up.
The credibility of Francisco de Roux, his moral fortitude and his human qualities will remain intact. Because, as the communiqué that the former truth commissioners issued in support of Pacho de Roux, thousands of Colombians can testify to his “honesty, transparency in his acts and his unparalleled moral and ethical rectitude in these turbulent times that Colombia is going through.[4]
I have my own reasons for doubting the moral rectitude of the character, but in a process such as this one, it is precisely his honesty that is being questioned. The defence cannot be that he is honest when it is his honesty that is in doubt. And losing yourself in eulogies and praise doesn’t tell us anything about the truth. Uribe praised murderers like the butcher of Urabá, General Rito Alejo del Río, describing him as an example to the soldiers and police officers of Colombia. In criminal processes, praise is not proof of anything, except perhaps of the friendship between one another and being blind to the facts.
An attack on the Truth Commission?
The journalists, former commissioners, various commentators, not to mention the keyboard warriors of Twitter have tried to frame what happened, not as a victim finally having the courage to come forward (and it is not easy to do so) but as an attack on the CEV. But the ones who make the connection between one and the other are they themselves and not the victims. The letter of support from the former commissioners writing in that role helped cement the relationship between one thing and another.
Another even more vulgar aspect is questioning the timing. They ask, why now? It is the type of question that is made when sex abuse victims report abuse. And the Catholic Church and its sycophants have resorted to that tactic many times. It is the tactic of all rapists. It doesn’t matter whether the victim reports it ten years or ten hours later, they always ask about the delay and insinuate that the motive is monetary. One would hope that journalists who had written about the conflict for years and the CEV commissioners who had studied the conflict exhaustively would understand the fear, the victims lack of resources and knowledge and the power relations between victim and victimiser. It would seem not. They claim to understand it, abstractly, writing about issues where they have no skin in the game, but in a case involving someone they know, suddenly the victim has all the power and knowledge in the world and can challenge the powerful. And that De Roux is powerful is beyond doubt. He is the child of a wealthy family, studied in the LSE and later in the Sorbonne and has always stood up for the powerful, be it ecclesiastic, economic or political power. He ended up as commander in chief of the Jesuits in Colombia. The power he holds compared to a person who initially did not want to report the abuse because he was dependent on a grant to study in a Jesuit school is clear, except for those who say, “We stand by you”.
Those who rally to De Roux commit a serious and crass moral error. They link the fate of the CEV, with all its multiple failings, to his fate in a criminal process. They also deny any agency or authority to the victims. They also twist the truth. De Roux is presented as an isolated individual in an isolated case, but this case can’t be dealt with whilst ignoring the hundreds of thousands of cases of abuse and cover up in the Catholic Church around the world. Nor can the universal strategy of that church of ignoring, minimising, relativising and evading the cases going before the criminal justice system in each country.
There are no definitive figures on the sexual abuse at the hands of priests, as the investigations are still ongoing and moreover there are different categories in each country and not all countries have carried out thorough investigations and in Colombia the investigations are minimal.
In France, however, an independent commission produced a 2,500 page report in which it was calculated that between 1950 and 2020, Catholic priests abused 216,000 children and the ecclesiastic authorities i.e. people like De Roux covered it up.[5] In Ireland we haven’t got a final figure yet, as new and even more recent abuses are uncovered each year. The report of the Inquiry into Child Abuse concluded that:
In general, male religious Congregations were not prepared to accept their responsibility for the sexual abuse that their members perpetrated. Congregational loyalty enjoyed priority over other considerations including safety and protection of children.[6]
There are those who talk about De Roux as a moral beacon in an institution that has shown itself over and again to be complicit in abuse. Even the Catholic Church in a recent report acknowledged that it wasn’t proactive.
At times, the commission found a troubling lack of reporting structures and victim/survivor accompaniment services,” the report said. “The commission found a persistent concern regarding the transparency in the Roman Curia’s (the church’s central administration) procedures and juridical processes.[7]
That the Church covers up, is accepted by all, even by the Church itself. There are those who say that we are ignoring that the crime was time-barred in 2014.[8] Not so. We are all aware of this, but the decision to time-bar a crime is one for the Prosecutor or a Judge. It is not up to a citizen to decide this, but rather report the crime and the authorities make a decision on the case. Not only did De Roux not do this, he didn’t inform anyone. Nobody knew an abuser was on the loose. When they paid tribute to him in the Jesuit university, La Javeriana, none of those present knew that he was predator and child abuser. It was worth remembering that the tribute was celebrated when the priest was supposedly confined to a convent.
As already stated, De Roux’s past is proof of nothing. Many people whose professional lives are as clean as a whistle, abuse. It took me two seconds to find the first two cases of accountants, who were never processed for financial crimes but rather for sex crimes, one in Ireland[9] and another in the USA.[10] There are thousands more and you can look for the profession you want and you will find doctors who cured but abused children, or firefighters who rescued people from blazing buildings but abused. De Roux’s supposed virtues in other aspects of his life, virtues that I have questioned on various occasions, are not proof of anything more than a possible great contradiction. Even if we accept that De Roux is a paragon of virtue regarding the conflict, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t cover up the crime of abuse.
His covering up, cannot be limited to whether he reported it to the Prosecutor’s Office or not, but rather whether he made the canonical sentence public or not, whether he informed the bodies charged with safeguarding children, whether those who organised the tribute to the pederast in the Javeriana University were informed. The answer is no. That we know of, he never did anything to report on the case and he had a moral duty to do so.
He should accept his mistake and if he wants, he can apply the Catholic dogma of the Confessional, examine his conscience, full confession, promise never to do it again and repair the harm caused. Those who call for the voice of the victims to be silenced in this case do a disservice to the victims of the armed conflict. They wave around the same arguments that Rito Alejo and Uribe did at every step. De Roux has the legal right to a presumption of innocence and due process but at no stage does he have the right to the silence of the victims. Neither can he argue that other virtues in his life are proof that show he is innocent now. Each crime is judged in isolation, in the interest of justice and truth. A criminal past is not proof of having committed another crime, just like a clean past is not proof of innocence.
References
[1] Hacía el Umbral (20/10/2024) Francisco de Roux fue denunciado penalmente por encubrimiento. Miguel Estupiñán.
[2] The Truth Commission’s report.
[3] El Espectador (25/10/2024) Estamos con usted, Francisco de Roux. Patricia Lara Salive.
[4] Ibíd.
[5] Al Jazeera (05/10/2021) French clergy sexually abused ‘over 200,000 children’ since 1950.
[6] Executive Summary of the Inquiry into Child Abuse para. 26.
[7] CNN (29/10/2024) Catholic Church still failing to ensure clerical abuse is reported, Pope Francis’ commission says. Christopher Lamb & Antonia Mortenson.
[8] El Espectador (31/10/2024) ¿Cuánto más debe Francisco de Roux? Simón Murillo.
[9] The Journal (18/09/2023) Bill Kenneally case 'one of the most serious cases of paedophilia ever in Ireland', judge says.
[10] US Attorney’s Office (24/10/2022) Press Release Judge Sentences South Bay Accountant to Life in Federal Prison for Producing Child Sexual Abuse Material of Filipino Victims.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
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