2 priests arrested for sexual abuse of men, ‘Pope’s judge’ under probe

Two Italian priests have been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing two men and arranging the theft of their cellphones containing incriminating text exchanges while a Vatican judge is under probe for involvement in the public tenders of the Sicilian mafia.

The two Franciscan priests were among six people arrested in the case that began in April when two men in Afragola, a town near Naples, reported a burglary, said prosecutors in Naples in a statement.

The two perpetrators, carrying clubs and knives, seized the mobile phone from one of the victims and searched in vain for that of the second before fleeing, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The victims immediately made the connection “back to previous relationships with some friars in the Campania region and to sexual abuse and violence suffered,” the statement said.

The ensuing investigation found “substantial evidence” of the sexual abuse “within several monasteries including the Basilica of Saint Antonio of Afragola”.

“It clearly emerged from the wiretaps that the robbery had been committed to steal from the two victims the phones in which were stored images and embarrassing chats that could have created problems for some friars of the monasteries where the victims had worked,” prosecutors wrote.

The victims also wrote to the priests’ superiors to denounce the attacks.

According to the prosecution, the priests subjected the victims to “sexual relations” in exchange for clothing, food or employment.

Wiretaps showed that the priest of Afragola, where the basilica is located, had ordered the burglary, “driven by the strong fear of facing the consequences of a complaint filed by the victims of violence supported by chats, videos and messages,” read the statement.

Four other people, described as “acquaintances” of that priest, were also arrested, according to the prosecution.

Local news media identified one of the victims as Italian and the other as a non-EU citizen. Their ages were not revealed.

Pignatone claims innocence

Meanwhile, the president of the Vatican tribunal, a former anti-mafia prosecutor, is suspected of obstructing a probe into public tenders awarded to Sicily’s mafia decades ago in Palermo.

Nicknamed “the Pope’s judge,” Giuseppe Pignatone, 75, will remain in his position at the Holy See until further notice, a Vatican source told Agence France-Presse.

Pignatone, who says he is innocent, was questioned Wednesday by a prosecutor in Caltanissetta, Sicily, as part of an investigation into his involvement in the rigged calls for tenders in 1992.

Interference into those public contracts by Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia had been the focus of Paolo Borsellino, one of Italy’s most famous anti-mafia judges, before his assassination the same year.