It was a sordid affair that had plagued Pope Francis, who was accused by the victims' lawyers of having covered the acts of two ecclesiastics. On Monday, 25 November, priests Horacio Corbacho and Nicola Corradi were sentenced to 45 years and 42 years in prison respectively for raping deaf children for years in a specialized institute in Argentina.
During this trial, which began in early August in Mendoza, in the west of the country, and has since been held in camera, 43 cases were examined and 13 victims heard, some of which were violated between 4 years old and 17 years old. Accused of rape, corruption of minors and ill-treatment, the two men were facing up to fifty years in prison. Mr Corbacho, 59, and Mr Corradi, 83, were in pre-trial detention. The Mendoza court also sentenced center gardener Armando Gomez for rape to eighteen years in prison.
"The little house of God"
In this vast case, a former mass servant, Jorge Bordon, 50, was already sentenced last year to ten years in prison after admitting to having abused five victims. About 15 other defendants are to be tried in two other trials. If the first denunciation dates from 2008, the case broke out eight years later when a former student denounced the facts to elected officials of Mendoza, the city of Provolo Institute, 1,000 km west of Buenos Aires .
Investigators were dispatched and they discovered an attic, dubbed "The little house of God", where children were raped, sometimes chained. The property was closed the same year. It welcomed free-lancers of modest extraction who were interns and returned home on weekends.
