At least 24 students of the Antonio Provolo Institute for the hearing impaired, in the Mendoza province of Argentina, sent the Pope a letter in 2014 naming Corradi as a rapist, but the Pope only acknowledged the letter this year, the Belfast Telegraph reported. Prosecutors in the case expect more victims to come forward and have argued that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was told about the allegations.
Carradi had been reassigned from his post in Italy to Pope Francis’ native country of Argentina, where students say they were subjected to sexual abuse. "They always said it was a game: 'Let’s go play, let’s go play' and they would take us to the girls’ bathroom," one student told AP.
Four employees working at the institute, including 55 year-old priest Horacio Corbacho, were taken into custody along with Carradi. Police discovered $34,000 in Carradi’s apartment at the time of arrest.
The victims’ families claim that Vatican leaders knew about Carradi’s abuses as early as 2009. At the time, Carradi was publicly accused of assaulting students at the Provolo Institute in Italy.
On multiple occasions Pope Francis spoke of the Roman Catholic Church’s "zero tolerance" policy, but critics point out the Pope’s failure to sanction Carradi and his henchmen is abysmally inconsistent with the policy.
