The case of the abuses at the Jesuïtes Casp school in Barcelona recently, and just a few weeks after the Episcopal Conference gave instructions to encourage victims in these cases to resort to civil justice, and not to religious justice, the Pious School of Catalonia has made public the abuses committed by a Piarist priest in Senegal and has announced that it has taken the case to the Prosecutor’s Office, although the cases are already prescribed. The order thus assumes, without ambiguity, the events that occurred in several of his schools in the African country, he admits that he did not act correctly and apologizes to all the victims.
The priest in question is Manel Sales Castella that, according to the Escola Pia in a statement, for 25 years, between 1980 and 2005 “he abused a significant number of minors, some of them students of the Piarists of Senegal.” And she did it with total impunity and with knowledge of the environment, as the Escola Pia admits, which states that the sexual abuse of Sales was known by the students, by the residents of the municipalities and even, according to some witnesses, by the addresses and teachers of the schools for which Sales passed during his stay in the African country.
Separated in 2005
It was in 2005, when a group of Catalans linked to Senegal and who today make up the Commission for the Defense of Minors Sexually Abused in the Church in Senegal -created last February- denounced the facts and Sales returned to Catalonia, was removed from activities involving contact with minors and underwent psychiatric treatment. However, she continued acting as rector parochial and having an active role as provincial secretary and member of the Presbyterial Council of the Archdiocese of Barcelona.
Since last February, the Commission has carried out work of collection of testimonials to denounce the facts and repair the damage caused to the victims. Within this framework, they contacted the Escola Pia through the Driving Group for an Independent Investigation of sexual abuse in the Church in Catalonia (CAT CIASE) and the new provincial, Jordi Vila, who took office last Marchmade himself available to the group to “assume responsibility” for the events.
“The Pia School wants publicly acknowledge and take responsibility of everything he did wrong in the past and denounce actions that are completely unacceptable,” they say in the statement.
Expelled in 2019
Related news
And in this exercise of self-criticism, the current leadership admits that “in 2005, despite the fact that the provincial learned of the facts, he did not initiate any complaint, neither by civil nor by ecclesiastical channels”. “That year with the argument to protect the institutionpeople who tried to denounce the facts were not duly attended to”. The provincial at the time was Jaume Pallarolas, who passed away in 2016.
It was not until 2018, when a French woman denounced the case, that the order asked Sales for an explanation, who admitted all the facts. The Escola Pia informed the Vatican and the process to expel this man from the priesthood began. The expulsion became effective in March 2019.