United You Can was left alone defending the disapproval of the figure of the Bishop, Bernardo Álvarez, for his inaction, in the opinion of the political formation, in the serious events reported by the victims of a alleged abuse committed by a priest from Tejinaa little over 10 years ago.
The rest of the political formations refused to approve the motion presented by the United co-spokesman, Rubens Ascanio, alleging that it is not the responsibility of the Plenary to “judge” someone who has not even been given the right to reply, and who does not have any conviction in his credit The separation of powers, that the case is in the Prosecutor’s Office or that the judges should be the ones to judge were some of the arguments.
All the formations were supported by the report issued by the secretary of the Plenary, in which, precisely, it was warned that the United motion exceeded municipal powers, by requesting responsibilities in another institution. What was approved was a substitution amendment in which solidarity with the victims of abuse and their families was expressed, as well as the rejection of any action that involves covering up abuses.
But before defending these positions, the councilors listened to the testimony of one of the victims of these alleged abuses, Ciro Molina, who told what he and his family have suffered during all these years. “We have been victims of abandonment,” he said, addressing the church. “They have not found time to listen to us, to accompany us. Instead, what was done was to exhort us not to go to criminal jurisdiction, because there was no penetration, and they won,” Molina explained.
He spoke of the calls for him to retract, the same ones that his mother received so that he would not report, and that did have an effect, he said, in other families who went through the same thing as him. “No one has yet answered why this priest has been doing this to children since the 1970s and all they did was change his parish,” he said. “What we ask today is a condemnation of the priest, but also of those who did not prevent him from continuing to do what he was doing,” he added.
Ciro Molina’s testimony was not enough to clear the doubts of the councilors, who, one after another, expressed their support for the substitution motion. The exception was the mayor of Historical Heritage, Elvira Jorge, from Avante, who supported the original motion of United “by conscience”, thus breaking the vote of her party, since Santiago Pérez did vote for the substitution amendment.
Rubens Ascanio refused to withdraw his text and praised Ciro’s courage for putting “light and voice to the abuses”, as did the rest of the mayors. Ascanio revealed that these days he has received numerous threats through social networks and also in other areas, to add that “we are not afraid”. “It hurts a lot to hear certain affirmations in this Plenary, in which Putin, Maduro or many others have been disapproved and now they don’t dare to do it with the church”, he added. He denied that it was a guilty verdict they were asking for, but a “positioning”.
