I’ve seen a portion of the documentary “Amen: The Pope Answers.” I say a portion because it became unbearable for me to watch more. I know that for many Catholics it simply left them bewildered.
Marketing experts say that, whenever a product is bad, it’s best to create an aggressive publicity campaign for it, to achieve the maximum impact in the shortest amount of time; after all, once the word spreads, you’ll no longer be able to fool anybody. I believe that’s what has happened with this documentary, and based on the reviews I’ve read even in publications like El País, it would appear that I’m not far off.
Perhaps it may seem laudable that the Pope agrees to participate in an ambush in which nine of the ten participants declare themselves to be non-believers or live in ways contrary to the Christian message. In the program, the Pope tries to understand each one of them, but conversation becomes impossible: one young woman asks him to understand those who defend abortion, a former nun explains to him that she is now a lesbian, and a young mother explains to him that she is a porn actress. All of them are hoping that the Pope will praise their behavior, because otherwise he’ll let them down. The program is manipulative from beginning to end. For example, Évole presents the mother as a model of tenderness. Does he honestly think that her daughter has an exemplary mother?
Curiously, the person selected from around the entire globe to speak about abuses in the Church is Juan Cuatrecasas. Unfortunately, there are thousands of cases of undisputed pederasty. There are confessed pederasts. Many of them have committed crimes an infinite number of times and over a long period of time. And although this seems to me to be an atrocity, nevertheless it strikes me as remarkable that the case they’ve chosen is mine: for I’ve defended my innocence since Day One. I repeat that nobody—except for Juan—has ever cast over me the smallest shadow of a doubt regarding my behavior as a teacher. Many sensible people have considered that I was innocent (I talk about it in detail in my previous blog post). Diverse interests are utilized by Évole to create a spectacle, because Évole isn’t interested in a clear case. He’s interested in controversy, viral product, audience.
We’ve been led to believe that the Pope is following this process very closely. Nevertheless, when Juan begins to speak with him and reminds him that he wrote to him, the Pope doesn’t recognize him. If the Pope is incapable of recognizing him, then who is “pushing” the Cuatrecasas case forward, such that it seems like a personal effort of the Pope? Why can’t I receive a personal audience with the Pope so that I can tell him my version of events and be on equal footing? Why am I being deprived of the most basic rights, such as an impartial trial? The fact that I’m Catholic doesn’t imply that I don’t have rights. The Pope says in the program that the trial is going to take place again because the previous sentence was “soft.” How many times is it going to take place again? What sentence will no longer appear soft? For twelve years I’ve lived with this torment: the Cuatrecasas living on a concocted story, and a group of clergymen using my case as a tool for their messes.
After seeing and listening to Juan, I insist that he’s lying. He’s lying when he says that I continued or now continue teaching classes because they didn’t prohibit me from doing so (I haven’t taught classes for twelve years). He’s lying when he told the judges in Bilbao that there was abuse, and now I discover through my attorneys that in a 2023 letter written for the ecclesial charge that he’s described that those supposed abuses occurred multiple times. And of course, how is it not going to move the Pope in that ambush organized by Évole?
Nor do I understand why Juan, who in the aforementioned program declares himself a non-believer, has such an interest in possible sanctions within the Catholic Church. I respect Buddhists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, but their internal sanctions don’t interest me in the least. Is there nobody who understands that the only thing that the Cuatrecasas family wants is to use the Pope as a tool to obtain their own media and economic objectives?
Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical process continues. My attorneys were summoned on 27 March 2023. They requested not to appear because for them the meeting was against the law. They were told that it didn’t matter whether they appeared or not; if they did not appear, the proceeding would continue regardless.
So, for me, it’s clear that the process would have continued with the only verdict possible for them: guilty. Does anyone believe that this is a just process when the most basic laws are ignored? When only one side is heard? When a right to self-defense doesn’t exist? They haven’t given the Pope’s decree to my attorneys to open the process; they haven’t given them the “new proof” that Juan is presenting; they haven’t turned over the previous process to them to verify that the proof really is new; they haven’t turned over the charge to them; they aren’t giving them time to prepare a defense; they aren’t permitting them an expert opinion of the charge. According to the instructor, Monsignor Satué, the proofs are not being turned over to them because “procedure does not allow it.” But indeed he turned over some proofs to them—because he knew that my attorneys already had them—although procedure prevented him from doing so.
Once again, I read in the press, this time in ABC, last 14th of March, that “José Antonio Satué […] is waiting to issue a sentence after finalizing his duties last month.” In other words, he’s finished up “his duties” without having dealt with the defense? Somebody explain this to me. Does there remain for anyone the least doubt of the arbitrariness of this process, no matter how much they try to disguise it as “just”?
As for those who push forward and participate in this big lie, I don’t know how their consciences will sleep peacefully at night. Maybe they aren’t accustomed to torture, and therefore they don’t realize that they’re practicing it. A process which takes place over 12 years, with so many trials, with a merciless media exposition and continuous prime time appearances, where procedural guarantees are not respected, where there is abuse of power, …is another way of being executioner and torturer.