Zanchetta appeal rejected in aggravated sex abuse case

Despite his sentence in Argentina, the bishop reportedly remains in Rome for 'medical treatment'

Judges in Argentina have rejected an appeal by Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta against his conviction for aggravated sexual abuse of seminarians.

Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta is greeted by Pope Francis. Image via Vatican media.

A court in Oran, where Zanchetta served as diocesan bishop from 2013 until his resignation in 2017, rejected the bishop’s appeal in December 2024, publishing their decision last week.

Zanchetta, one of the first episcopal appointments made by Pope Francis after his election, was convicted in 2022 of sexual abuse of two seminarians, aggravated by his ministerial role and position as superior over the victims, and sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

The bishop was subsequently released on medical grounds and allowed to live under house arrest in a retired priests’ home in his former diocese.

In November, Zanchetta travelled to Rome with the court’s permission, to receive unspecified “medical treatment” and according to reports has yet to return.

Judge Virginia Solórzano noted in the court’s decision that “Zanchetta's technical defense” seemed to accuse the prosecution of launching a witchhunt against the bishop after a local newspaper reported in 2019 the reasons for his 2017 departure from the diocese, which was originally claimed as a resignation for “health reasons.”

In 2019, El Tribuno broke the story that Zanchetta’s 2017 resignation for “health reasons” in fact followed multiple complaints of sexual abuse of seminarians against the bishop made to Vatican authorities as early as 2015.

In the court’s decision last month dated Dec. 27, Judge Solórzano 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.

“The gender of those involved has no bearing on the clear sexual connotation of the alleged conduct, especially if - as in these examples - there was a relationship of subordination between the aggressor and the victims,” the judge reasoned. “Therefore, the aforementioned atypicality of Zancheta's conduct has no basis in gender bias. The sexuality of resting one's genitals on the bum [of another] is beyond any discussion.”

“Thus, the appealed judgment is valid and does not present any arbitrary defects or flaws in the processes of forming the conviction,” she ruled.

Despite his criminal conviction, now upheld, Zanchetta remains a bishop 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.

Zanchetta previously served as executive undersecretary of the Argentine bishops’ conference, where he worked closely with then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who led the conference from 2005-2011. Pope Francis named him Bishop of Oran as one of his first episcopal appointments after his election in 2013.

After Zanchetta resigned as diocesan bishop in 2017, at the age of 53, Pope Francis created a special position for him in the Roman curia, naming him assessor at the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, which functions as the Vatican’s sovereign wealth manager and government reserve bank.

Zanchetta was reported to be living at the Domus Sanctae Marta, the Vatican hotel and retreat house where Pope Francis also lives.

Although Zanchetta initially cited “health reasons” for his resignation from the Oran diocese, several senior diocesan clergy have stated publicly that they presented allegations of sexual abuse by Zanchetta to Rome in 2015, and again in 2017. The Vatican has claimed it only received complaints of sexual abuse against Zanchetta in late 2018 — after he had resigned.

Those complaints led to the charges of “aggravated continuous sexual abuse” of two adult seminarians for which Zanchetta was convicted in March of 2022.

Despite the Vatican’s statement, a February 2019 report from El Tribuno published documents apparently illustrating that a formal complaint had been made against Zanchetta by three of his diocesan vicars, as well as two other senior diocesan priests, and that Pope Francis had summoned the bishop to Rome to discuss the matter.

El Tribuno also detailed other complaints made against Zanchetta, including direct accusations of harassment of seminarians made by the seminary rector. The complaints were submitted via the apostolic nunciature in Buenos Aires in May and June 2017, prior to Zanchetta’s resignation for “health reasons.”

When the Vatican first acknowledged allegations of abuse against Zanchetta in 2019, it also announced the bishop was taking a leave of absence from his specially-created 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.

Zanchetta returned to Vatican work in early 2020, despite ongoing criminal and canonical investigations into the allegations against him, before finally leaving his role at APSA in June 2021, and returning to Argentina to stand trial in 2022.

In the course of that trial, the bishops’ attorneys subpoenaed the Vatican’s files pertaining to the canonical investigation and trial of Zanchetta at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the trial in Argentina was delayed while the court waited for those documents.

Despite measures taken by Pope Francis to declassify Church reports on cases of sexual abuse, including a 2020 Vatican policy requiring diocesan bishops to cooperate with judicial orders for Church documents, the Zanchetta files did not arrive in Argentina, and the judges elected to proceed with the trial without them.

While the bishop pled not guilty and filed to appeal his conviction, victims and witnesses testified that in 2016, Bishop Zanchetta abused seminarians at John XXIII Seminary, and at his own residence.

In addition to particular abuses, the bishop serially pressured seminarians to engage in sexual conduct, displayed pornographic selfies and other images on his phone, and pushed seminarians for massages and other contact while supplying them with alcohol, according to testimony at trial.

Zanchetta’s continued presence in the diocese, and the lack of information about the canonical process against him in the Vatican, have been the focus of considerable criticism from local Catholics since the bishop’s conviction.

In addition to concerns about Zanchetta’s presence, many local Catholics have also expressed fears of possible retaliation by Church authorities against the priests and seminarians who gave evidence against the bishop.

In 2022, several Argentine media outlets reported that the same canon lawyer who had defended Zanchetta in his canonical trial had been sent to Oran by the Vatican to conduct an investigation into the clergy and seminarians who testified against him.

The judge of the provincial ecclesiastical tribunal confirmed the appointment of Prof. Javier Belda Iniesta as investigator and that he had been appointed by Pope Francis.

Belda Iniesta has told local media at the time that “there is nothing strange” about his appointment and stressed that his investigation was preliminary, intended only to establish if there is a minimal semblance of truth to some allegations, and his investigation was not necessarily related to Zanchetta’s case.

However, it subsequently emerged that in 2021 Belda was dismissed as Dean of the Faculty of Human, Canonical and Religious Sciences at the Catholic University of Murcia, Spain after he was unable to substantiate several academic qualifications listed on his resumé.

Belda reportedly could not substantiate his claims to degrees in several disciplines, including philosophy, civil law, theology, and Hispanic philology. He was able to produce degrees in canon law, however.