Where is Zanchetta?

Bishop Oscar Zanchetta is supposed to be in Argentina. Did he return from Rome?

While a local court ordered his return to Argentina by April 1 after an extended hospital stay in Rome, it is not clear whether Bishop Gustavo Óscar Zanchetta has yet returned from Rome.

Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta is greeted by Pope Francis. Credit: Vatican Media.

The bishop was granted permission by an Argentinian court to be in Rome through March. Two weeks after the deadline, Rome’s Gemelli Hospital says he is not still there — but the Diocese of Nueva Orán, where the bishop is supposed to be serving house arrest, has not confirmed he returned.

The most recent reports indicated that Zanchetta remained last month in Rome.

But where is Bishop Zanchetta now?

—
Zanchetta, who was in 2022 convicted of sexual abuse, traveled to Rome last November with the court’s permission, to receive cardiac medical treatment.

The bishop was permitted to go after his attorneys argued there “were no medical centers in Argentina that guaranteed the necessary conditions for the surgery, and that the procedure in Italy would be cheaper.”

Later, Argentine media reported that Zanchetta underwent heart surgery in the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, the same hospital where Pope Francis was hospitalized for almost two months.

—
In 2013, the newly-elected Pope Francis appointed Zanchetta the Bishop of Nueva Orán, one of the first episcopal nominations made by the pope.

But in 2017, Zanchetta resigned from that office at the age of 53 — 22 years before the normal age.

Zanchetta initially cited health reasons for his early retirement, but it later emerged that senior clergy in the diocese had complained for years about the bishop’s conduct, leading to charges of “aggravated continuous sexual abuse” against two seminarians, for which he was convicted in March 2022.

The bishop was subsequently released on medical grounds and allowed to live under house arrest in a retired priests’ home in his former diocese — and then permitted last year to travel to Rome.

Zanchetta was initially ordered to return to Argentina on February 1, and then was given court permission to extend his stay until April 1.

But reports that Zanchetta has not left the city have persisted in recent weeks.

The Pillar contacted the cardiology department of the Gemelli Hospital, which said that Zanchetta was not still hospitalized there.

The Diocese of Nueva Orán, where Zanchetta used to serve as bishop and is under house arrest, did not respond to The Pillar’s requests for comment — leaving it unclear whether Zanchetta has returned to Argentina.

—
In January 2019, the Vatican announced that it had received complaints of sexual abuse against Zanchetta months earlier, in late 2018.

But later that month, Zanchetta’s former vicar general in Nueva Orán, Fr. Juan Jose Manzano, told AP that the Vatican had been presented with allegations of sexual abuse of seminarians and financial misconduct by Zanchetta as early as 2015, and again in 2017, shortly before the bishop presented his resignation to Pope Francis.

Manzano said that as early as 2015, Church authorities were alerted that Zanchetta had sent sexually explicit “selfies” on his cell phone, and received “obscene” images of young men engaged in sexual contact.

According to Manzano, “the Holy Father summoned Zanchetta [to Rome] and he justified himself saying that his cellphone had been hacked, and that there were people who were out to damage the image of the pope.”

Local outlet El Tribuno also detailed complaints made against Zanchetta by priests of his own diocese in 2017, which included financial mismanagement, as well as direct accusations of harassment of seminarians made by the seminary rector.

Shortly after Francis accepted his resignation in 2017, the pope appointed Zanchetta to the role of assessor at the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, which functions as the Vatican’s sovereign wealth manager, and government reserve bank and paymaster. Zanchetta was also reported to be living at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican hotel and retreat house where Pope Francis also lives.

When the Vatican acknowledged allegations of sexual abuse against Zanchetta in 2019, it also announced the bishop was taking a leave of absence from his position at APSA.

Vatican officials also said that a canonical investigation was underway to examine the allegations against the bishop — to date, the conclusions of that investigation have not been announced.

But Zanchetta returned to Vatican work in early 2020, despite ongoing criminal and canonical investigations into the allegations against him.

Zanchetta left his role at APSA in June 2021, leaving Vatican City ahead of his trial in Argentina, which began Feb. 21, 2022.

On February 4, an appeals’ court rejected Zanchetta’s attempt to overturn the ruling against him.

The judge noted in the court’s decision that “Zanchetta's technical defense” seemed to accuse the prosecution of launching a witchhunt against the bishop.

The judge dismissed Zanchetta’s argument against the prosecution’s methods and case, noting that complaints filed by both victims predated press coverage of the case.

The judge also considered claims by Zanchetta’s lawyers that the bishop’s actions against the seminarians had been misinterpreted by judges as abusive because the court “resorted to a gender stereotype.”

The conviction, Zanchetta’s attorneys argued, was only possible because “the facts were assessed with a gender bias, [with] the understanding that the complainants gave a different meaning to the defendant's behavior when they were told that he was homosexual, because otherwise Zancheta's behavior would not be seen as abusive but as a joke between men.”

Solórzano rejected that argument, calling it “contrary to reality.”

“All [Zanchetta’s] behaviors have a sexual nature, regardless of the gender of the people involved. A kiss on the cheek or the forehead is not the same thing as a kiss on the neck or nape of the neck, since the former are fraternal or friendly while the latter have a clear sexual intention. The same happens with the introduction of the finger in the mouth or placing the hand on the crotch,” the judge ruled.

Despite his criminal conviction, now upheld, Zanchetta remains a cleric and has faced no known disciplinary measures from Church authorities, raising criticism from local Catholics and drawing international attention, because of Pope Francis’ personal involvement in the case.