G
General Veers
Guest
Apr 21, 2010
Priests face abuse allegations
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Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa, 83, listens at a state congressional investigative panel in Alagoas, northeastern Brazil, Monday, April 19, 2010. -- PHOTO: AP
RIO DE JANEIRO - THREE Roman Catholic priests in northeastern Brazil are suspected of sexually abusing children in a scandal that arose after a video showed one of the priests in a sex act with a young man. The scandal in the world's largest Roman Catholic country comes as the Church globally confronts a crisis caused by a wave of allegations of child sex abuse by priests, some going back decades. Luiz Marques Barbosa, a Catholic monsignor in the city of Arapiraca in Alagaos state, was arrested late on Sunday after a congressional commission examined the video and heard witness statements from alleged victims.
Local police chief Barbara Arraes told Reuters that Barbosa, who media said was between 82 and 84 years old, and two other priests were suspected of abusing children and that prosecutors are now deciding whether to file charges. One of the other priests had confessed and was helping investigators, she said on Tuesday, while the other had denied the allegations.
Barbosa was put under preventative arrest for 30 days at a military police barracks after police found out he had recently obtained a passport.
Former altar boys in Arapiraca told the congressional commission on pedophilia that they had been sexually abused when they were children. 'The alter boys are adults now but they were minors when it (the abuse) happened,' Ms Arraes said. -- REUTERS
