Quiapo Church lay minister suspended for molesting child
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2019 06:23:33 +0000
QUIAPO Church in Manila suspended a lay minister, who turned fugitive after he was allegedly caught on video sexually molesting a 12-year-old girl.
The Manila Police District (MPD) identified the suspect as Victorino Abot Jongco, 69.
Msgr. Hernando Coronel, Quiapo Church rector, said that the protocol of the church was being observed— pastoral care for the victim and sanction for the offender.
Fr. Douglas Badong, parochial vicar of the Quiapo Church, said that even if the alleged molester has not been reporting to work, Jongco was banned from exercising public ministry until the case against him has been resolved.
Badong said that ever since the video was leaked, he has not gone back to Quiapo Church.
“For now, we are still waiting for his explanations. We need to hear his side,” Badong said.
Kaylangan harapin ito at patunayan na wala syang sala. (He needs to face this [allegation] and prove his innocence,) the church official added.
As for the purported victim, she would be assisted spiritually, psychologically even financially, Badong said.
Jongco reportedly abused the minor in a public space at least three times, the unidentified victime herself said over the GMA’s “24 Oras.”
“Iniwan kasi siya ng lola niya sa simbahan tapos maglalaba, so naging familiar na sa kanya ang mga tao sa simbahan (Her grandmother leaves her at church, so the lay people know her),” said Quiapo station commander Melvin Florida said.
Pope Francis in February gathered about 190 bishops in a landmark summit in Rome to tackle and address pedophilia, a scandal which has been assailing the Church for decades.
This comes after the Holy Father ousted former American cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was accused by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, then apostic nuncio to the United States, of sexually assaulting a teenager some 50 years ago.
Viganò, in his 11-page letter last year, also alleged two dozens of current and former Vatican officials and US bishops and papal advisers, of covering up Mccarrick’s alleged scandal and called for Francis to resign over the matter.
Pope Francis has vowed to stop covering up child sexual abuse in the Chuch “as was usual in the past.”
Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s economy minister and a top adviser to Pope Francis, was convicted also in February of molesting two choirboys at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the 1990s by a court in Australia.
Pell was serving as an archbishop at the time of the crime. He strongly denied the allegations in 2016. CATHERINE A. MODESTO
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