Manel Sales Castellà, a Piarist and missionary, abused for decades "a significant" number of minor students of the Piarists in Senegal. This has been denounced in a letter by the Commission for the Defense of Sexually Abused Minors in the Church of Senegal and the Provincial of the Escola Pia de Catalunya, Jordi Vila. The entity has wanted to publicly apologize for events that would have taken place over 25 years and has launched different actions to search for possible victims and repair the damage.
The events denounced would have taken place in the Casamance region between 1980 and 2005 and were known to a number of students and residents of the area. Sales "took advantage of his missionary status" as well as the "authority he had over minors," the congregation explains. Some abuses that were also silenced by the social situation itself, which makes it difficult to make a public complaint. There was another obstacle: homosexuality is punishable by jail in Senegal.
After a complaint from a group of Catalans linked to the country, Sales was removed from his activities with minors in 2005. He underwent psychiatric treatment, but remained within the order and continued to play an "active" role in the institution as rector, provincial secretary and member of the Presbyteral Council of the Arquebisbat of Barcelona despite the fact that the facts with which he was accused were already known.
In 2018 and after a complaint from a French citizen, the congregation asked the defendant for explanations, who acknowledged the facts. The congregation recognizes the "error" of not properly attending to complainants that is attributed to the desire to "protect" the institution. The religious authorities in Rome were then informed to expel Sales from the priesthood, something that happened a year later, in 2019.
At that time, the congregation was already trying to identify possible victims, but decided not to insist "out of respect." With the letter made public this Thursday, they assume the abuses and express their "absolute indignation, rejection and revulsion" for abuses that "do not represent the congregation." And they assure that they have brought the case to the attention of the prosecution and ecclesiastical authorities.
They apologize to the victims, also to those who were not heard when they denounced the abuses. In the same way, they apologize to those people who "have trusted in the missionary work" and announce that they have created an independent commission of experts to attend to the victims and their families.
