According to the religious order, the envelope was delivered to the prosecutor’s office “unopened, as it was received and with authorization for the public prosecutor’s office to open it.”
In addition, the Jesuits requested a copy of the document in its entirety from the prosecutor’s office since “only some excerpts were made public” in the El País newspaper.
However, the director of the prosecutor’s office specializing in crimes on account of gender and youth, Daniela Cáceres, said that “during the opening of the sealed envelope, it was verified through the proceedings that the diary is not complete; it has breaks in the sequence of pages and crossed out and deleted sections,” the news media outlet Opinion reported.
While not explicitly stated, this implies the copy of the diary was sent in printed form.
How did the diary get to Rome?
The Society of Jesus in Bolivia stated that it “does not know how the document got to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith or if it was delivered complete and legible, as addressed by the prosecutor’s office,” the news media outlet Los Tiempos reported.
For the Bolivian portal La Razón, “the question arises as to how the Vatican had a copy of the diary, since in his interview with El País, Fernando [Pedrajas’ nephew] makes no mention of turning over a copy of the document.”
The National Association of Alumni of the John XXIII School also made a statement on the matter.
“If the pedophile’s diary arrived from Rome, via courier, sent by the general curia of the Society of Jesus, which in turn received it from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, then the delivery is irrefutable proof that the Jesuits knew about it beforehand.”
The alumni association therefore deduced that “there was a cover-up of the criminal acts of the pedophile.”
The association pointed out in a statement that the diary “doesn’t come from Spain, it doesn’t come due to international cooperation between prosecutors in Spain and Bolivia; it doesn’t come sent by the pedophile’s homosexual partner; it doesn’t come via [Pedrajas’] nephew; it doesn’t come through the Spanish newspaper El País. It comes from Rome.”
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On July 5 ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, consulted the head of the Communications Commission of the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference, Andrés Eichmann, who confirmed that the Jesuits in Bolivia have no knowledge of how Pedrajas’ diary got to Rome.
The same query was sent by ACI Prensa on July 5 to the Holy See Press Office, but no response has been received to date.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Julieta Villar has a degree in social communication from the National University of La Matanza (Argentina). She began her professional career as an editor at the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA). She has collaborated in graphic press media and communication tasks in civil society organizations. Since October 2022, she has been part of the ACI Prensa team as a correspondent for Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Uruguay.