"This complaint has been filed after three victims have appeared who have told their truth and who were seeking justice," whistleblower Juan Arratia told EFE.
The lawyer indicated that, although the alleged assailant is dead, "it is no less true than his environment, which was obliged to report and prosecute this person, what he did was the opposite."
In February 2019, EFE uncovered the case of the Spanish priest Luis Roma from the denunciation of a former member of the order who requested anonymity, based on about thirty photographs in which he recognized the priest in sexualized scenes with minors between six and twelve years old, added to the descriptions that the priest himself recorded in a newspaper.
That year, the Society of Jesus began an internal investigation, without divulging for several years, where it was found in the priest's room "erotic content", which the religious recognized in a written "personal confession", as EFE found.
Rome died months later without the order filing a complaint with the authorities, despite the fact that the internal investigation had concluded that the case was "plausible".
The complaint filed today indicates that Menacho and Cardozo allegedly knew about the assaults, while Chirveches and Suñol were in charge of managing the previous investigation, which was kept in "reservation" in the Jesuit curia of La Paz, by superior provisions.
The Rome case came to light again after, on April 30, 2023, the newspaper El País revealed the contents of the newspaper of the also Spanish Jesuit Alfonso Pedrajas, who died in 2009, in which he related alleged abuses against dozens of children while directing the Juan XXIII school, since 1971.
After this, the Prosecutor’s Office closed the investigation for lack of complaint of the victims, but reopened it in 2024 after the publication of the details of the newspaper of the priest, in which he also mentioned alleged abuses of indigenous girls in the mission of Charagua, in Santa Cruz (east).
The voice of the victims
Carla (a fictional name at the request of the complainant) told EFE that Rome invited many children to her room, in the Jesuit community in Charagua, to "watch movies", and that he offered them chocolates and cookies.
"We have not realized that with the drink he gave us we lost consciousness ... because when we reacted and met him, he took the photos," she said of the alleged events that would have occurred in the early 2000's, according to her.
He invited many children to his room, in the Jesuit community in Charagua, to "watch movies", and offered them chocolates and cookies: With the drink he gave us we lost consciousness
Carla’s account coincides with that of Paola (a fictional name at the request of the complainant), who told EFE that in the film sessions the children who invited Rome lost consciousness, a situation that the priest took advantage of to record videos and photographs, he said.
Carla mentioned that with the filing of the complaint he seeks to "rest quietly" and that justice also punishes "complicit people".
For his part, Paola mentioned that his complaint is so that this "does not happen to any girl" and that the Society of Jesus is closed in Bolivia after it was known that the allegations involving Jesuits "continue" appearing.Edwin Alvarado, one of the spokespersons of the CBS, who accompanied the women who were victims of Rome, hopes that with this complaint "the impunity will be put to an end" in this and other cases.
In Bolivia, at the end of last year, a first sentence was handed down against the former Jesuit chiefs, Ramón Alaix and Marcos Recolons, to a year in prison for covering up the abuses of the priest Pedrajas.