The prosecutors of Monte Plata requested pretrial custody against removed priest Jose Altagracia Rosario González of the La Candelaria church in Sabana Grande de Boya, Monte Plata province. The priest is now accused of sexual aggression against a then 15-year old girl.
The prosecutors took up the case in May 2018, after the Santo Domingo Archbishop Office communicated the crime and empowered the Attorney General Office to investigate the removed priest. The National Institute for Forensic Sciences (Inacif) is investigating the case. The former priest Rosario González was arrested on 1 October 2018, at his residence in Sabana Grande de Boyá.
One of his victims is now 23-years old. His nightmare began when he was 14 became a victim of a pedophile priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Republic. He told his story to journalists from Listin Diario. He says that he was an altar boy and was preparing an event for the Virgin Mary at the church with other boys when he was called by the priest by his full name. He says he then was shoved into the bathroom near the altar and the priest began to touch his intimate parts. He said he asked what was happening, and said he didn’t want to lose respect for the priest, despite the priest having lost respect for him. The priest is alleged to have put a hand over the mouth of the young victim and then proceeded to rape him. He told the Listin Diario journalists that then the priest threatened him, saying he was armed. The priest also said to have warned the boy that if he tried to seek help no one would believe him.
The young victim vowed not to return to the church, but the priest, by sending messages to boy’s sister, convinced him to go back. The boy recounted that he warned the priest to leave him alone. But instead, he was raped for a second time. He remembered the priest telling him, “I like you like that, fatty.”
Little did the boy know that two years before, the same priest had raped his mother. The youth then moved to Santo Domingo to work in a mechanics workshop, having abandoned his plans to become a priest.
But the revelation of two other cases of sexual abuse by the priest before the religious authorities inspired more victims to come forward. “When the bomb exploded, I remained silent as did my mother. That was about nine years ago. God knows to how many more people, he did the same,” he sadly observes. The victim believes the priest was transferred to another town.
“They sent him to another place knowing why he could not go back to where he was. It was like a reward for his evil deeds. And I say reward, because in the new place he was going to find fresh meat, nobody knew him, and just as he did with us, he would gain the trust of the people and then execute his work: abuse of minors. ”
Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
El Nacional
El Caribe
Acento
Listin Diario
Listin Diario
4 October 2018
