The Bolivian Network of Survivors of Church Abuse has described the expulsion of 84-year-old Jesuit Francesc Peris, accused of abusing 22 minors in Spain and Bolivia, as a «mere symbolic gesture.» This was stated by its spokesperson, Pedro Lima, to The Pillar in a report published on October 20, in which he argues that the measure does not address the complicity of the Society of Jesus and may serve to evade institutional responsibility.
The Society announced on October 5 the expulsion of Peris, known as «Father Cesc,» from the clerical state and the order, after a canonical criminal process found him guilty of several offenses. However, the religious will continue to live in a Jesuit residence, subject, according to the agreement signed with the order, to constant surveillance and supervision. InfoVaticana already reported on that decision and on the recognition of «serious errors» by the Society.
The conditions of his stay in the residence
According to The Pillar, the agreement prohibits Peris from having contact with minors or vulnerable adults, leaving the residence without authorization, or communicating with his victims. The acts attributed to him span from 1974 to 2004, and the victims place the origin of the abuses in the 1960s at a school in Barcelona, where, according to their account, he would take students out of class to bring them to his room.
Peris was sent to Bolivia in 1983, where he worked at the Juan XXIII school in Cochabamba, and returned to Spain in 1984, so the complaints continued until in 2005 he was transferred from the Barcelona school to a residence. At the beginning of this year, a Spanish court determined that he could not be tried through criminal proceedings because the crimes had expired, a point that InfoVaticana reported in January.
The victims call for those who covered up to be reported
Lima told The Pillar that the expulsion «is merely a symbolic gesture» and does not address the complicity of the Jesuits. The survivors also accuse the Society in Bolivia of having covered up the abuses of several priests, an accusation they have also brought to the Catalan institutional sphere, as this newspaper published in April. For its part, the organization SNAP, the U.S. network of survivors of clerical abuse, published the report the same day under the headline that the expulsion is an «empty gesture,» and summarized the victims’ position with the phrase «forgiveness is not justice.»
In the same line of demanding accountability from superiors, the victims of the Pedrajas case have asked the Church to excommunicate the former Jesuit provincials Alaix and Recolons, convicted in Bolivia for covering up the abuses of Alfonso Pedrajas.