May 22, 2023, 5:40 PM
May 22, 2023, 5:40 PM
After the Bolivian Episcopal Conference (CEB) confirm the presence of Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, official of the Department for the Doctrine of the Faith, in Bolivia, Many asked who this authority is and what its functions are. It comes just at a time when the scandal of pedophilia cases within the Catholic Church has broken out in Bolivia. Here we detail his trajectory.
According to a publication by the prestigious Vanity Fair, Bertomeu is nothing more and nothing less than one of the key men around Pope Francis.
They describe him as a kind of super agent: “He is in charge of investigating cases of sexual abuse for the pontiff to minors carried out by the clergy of the Catholic Church”says part of the article based on an interview with the ecclesiastical authority, one of the few that he has granted, since it is said that are you allergic to the mediaas a way of pointing out that moves low profile. It is expected that he will concentrate his activities in Bolivia, in Cochabamba, the city where several of the abuses were carried out that the deceased Jesuit, Alfonso Pedrajas, a member of the Society of Jesus, confessed to in his diary when he worked at the Colegio Juan XXIII.
Reserved, very cautious, always measuring wordsMonsignor Jordi Bertomeu i Farnós is the great unknown of the Holy See. A character so hidden from public opinion currently as a key to the image and even the survival of the Catholic Church.
According to the records, Born in the Catalan city of Tortosa in 1968, he studied Law at the University of Barcelona and he studied Theology at the Tortosa Seminary before being ordained a priest in 1995, when he was already 27 years old. He is a doctor in Canon Law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
In 2012 he would start working as an officer of the Disciplinary Section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the former Holy Office of the Vatican. Simultaneous this task with the position of judicial vicar of the diocese of Tortosa (2002).
Pope Francis named him his holiness’s chaplain on April 27, 2018 as recognition for his work in Chile, and therefore, he holds the title of monsignor.
Circumstances led him to be in charge of directing the investigations that concluded with the “beheading” of practically the entire leadership of the Catholic Church in Chile, either for abuses or for covering them up. When he arrived in Santiago, in June 2018, he was accompanying Monsignor Charles Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta, already known in the Vatican for his career in investigating cases of sexual abuse by priest Marcial Maciel, Founder of the Legionaries of Christ.
Pope Francis had entrusted them with the mission of collecting evidence, if any, of the cover-up by Juan Barros, Bishop of Osorno, of the crimes of the priest Fernando Karadima. As soon as they arrived in the Chilean capital, Scicluna had to be admitted for a gallbladder problem, so Bertomeu would take charge of directing the investigations that would lead him to achieve unprecedented success in the fight against pedophilia in the Church, since he gathered evidence of a widespread cover-up by the Chilean hierarchy.
The impeccable work done in Chile would continue in some other country, but above all in Mexico, where they should go at the beginning of March 2020, this time with Scicluna already recovered, to start a similar investigation. However, this last special mission was interrupted after a few days by the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic.
“If at the beginning Protestant heresy and behaviors that harmed the faith of the simple were persecuted, such as magic, witchcraft, blasphemy and even usury, today we are faced with a sin and a very serious crime to which given an answer: pedophilia, favored by a new means of communication, the internet. The new times require new responses. A Church that learns from past mistakes, but always attentive to the signs of the times”, said Bertomeu himself, at that time.
In the words of the same monsignor, “Francisco, a Jesuit pope, asks you to make a discernment from your inner emotions to find out the will of God in the decisions you have to make. He is a very free man, very human and above all, very spiritual.”.
Furthermore, the religious confessed that “with Francisco I have learned that good governance of the Church is possible only by diving into the intimacy of your heart. To work in the curia, a spiritual process is necessary that makes you look more like Christ every day , The Good Shepherd. We were wrong, yeah. On the path of life we get dirty and end up hurt, it’s true. But the key is to be humble and simple in a path of continuous conversion. When we act like this, when we make the Vatican or the Church a power structure similar to those of the world, we make a complete mistake. That’s what I’m learning from Francisco.”
Likewise, at that time, the monsignor referred to the cases of pedophilia, indicating that “the cover-up of sexual abuse of minors, in a culture of hypersexualization and freedom exercised without any bonddoing what gives one more pleasure without looking first for the good of the other, is one of the most serious forms of this corruption that we must also face within the Church”.
The Episcopal Conference clarified, through a statement, that “on the occasion of the fraternal visit to the Catholic University of Paraguay by Cardinal Orani Joao Tempesta, Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, official of the Department for the Doctrine of Faith, The Bolivian Episcopal Conference has requested the presence of the latter in our country to analyze together in the coming days progress made so far, in line with the culture of prevention promoted by Pope Francis”.
Moreover, they pointed out that this visit “yesand started managing three years agofollowing the participation of some members of the National Prevention Commission in online courses due to the Covid-19 pandemic”.
