THE CHARAGUA MANUSCRIPTS
Over decades, a Spanish priest, Lucho Roma, abused hundreds of Indigenous girls in Bolivia. He photographed them, recorded them on video and documented his crimes in writing. This is the second diary of a pedophile priest that EL PAÍS has managed to access. On this occasion, however, the Society of Jesus carried out investigations that confirmed the crimes. But then, after Roma’s death in 2019, they kept them in a drawer, where they remained unpublished. Until today
Madrid – Jun 18, 2024 – 09:51 CEST
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His “obsession” — the word that Roma used to describe his penchant for sexual assault — became a constant in 1994. That’s when a new provincial superior, Marcos Recolons, was promoted. He’s now under house arrest in Bolivia, accused of having covered up for several pedophiles during his mandate.
The year of his ascension, Recolons designated Roma to be a missionary in Charagua, a small town of less than 2,500 inhabitants, the majority hailing from the Guaraní Indigenous community. In a letter that he sent to Recolons that same year, it’s clear that this was a highly-desirable destination for the accused.
Then 59 years old, the Spaniard arrived in that impoverished town in 1994. He served as a parish priest and as director of the new school that the Jesuits had opened. Shortly afterwards, he was named a superior of the Jesuit Order in Charagua. He always carried a camera with him — initially a film camera — and got the photos developed in Santa Cruz, the most populous city in the country. Later, Roma bought a digital camera, which allowed him to print the images in his room.
A local resident clearly remembers the day he arrived. “He was the boss. He dressed impeccably; [his clothes] were always freshly ironed,” she tells EL PAÍS. At the time, the Church had great power and influence in the area, thanks to its humanitarian work. This is why it was common for children to always be within the Church. This source says that Roma quickly surrounded himself with minors. “He was the apostle of children: he filled his van with little girls.”
Shortly after arriving, in 1996, Roma began to write The Charagua Manuscripts. The documents only cover up to the year 2001, while the writings found appear incomplete and the entries aren’t always in order. But the stories are terrifying: he details precisely how he gathered the girls into groups, showered with them in his room and took snapshots of them. Days later, he would return to look at these pictures and masturbate.
Charagua, October 31, 1998
Today, 10 girls have passed through my room and I will have taken about 95 pictures of my little darlings.
The conclusions made by the psychologists who analyzed these texts are resounding:
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