The Bishopric of Nueva Orán, in Argentina, reported that the priest Carlos Fernando Páez, 58, was provisionally suspended from the public exercise of his ministry and will not be able to continue living in the parish house until the accusations of sexual abuse in his against.
“After being informed of the trial against Fr. Carlos Fernando Páez by civil justice, the bishop of this diocese, Fray Luis Antonio Scozzina OFM, has decided to provisionally suspend him from the public exercise of the ministry and from residing in the parish of Our Lady of Merced de La Unión until its procedural situation is resolved,” reported the diocese this week.
Father Páez was denounced in 2019, for allegedly having sexually abused a former seminarian between 2015 and 2017 when he was ministering at the La Santa Cruz Church in Villa Saavedra, in Tartagal.
According to the media Entérate Salta, after the complaint the priest was sent to a parish in La Unión, in the department of Rivadavia.
“The complainant is the former seminarian KM, who was a witness in the trial in which Bishop Emeritus Gustavo Zanchetta was sentenced and reported that he was a victim of the two religious, although he only filed his complaint against one,” the media outlet specifies.
In May 2022, the Fiscal Unit requested the local justice to initiate a civil trial against the Argentine priest.