The ignored victims of Santarsiero: exposed by the accused while the Church neither confirms receipt of nor acknowledges their complaint

On March 26, 2026, a notarial letter was hand-delivered to the Apostolic Nunciature in Lima. Its formal recipient: the apostolic nuncio in Peru, Mons. Paolo Rocco Gualtieri. Its content: a formal complaint against Mons. Antonio Santarsiero Rosa, OSJ, bishop of the diocese of Huacho and then secretary general of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, for alleged systematic sexual abuse—including a minor in the diocesan minor seminary—and psychological mistreatment of persons under his authority. The file was simultaneously referred to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, presided over by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández.

It was not the first time these facts reached Rome. According to the dossier, documented communications regarding the same facts had been submitted to Vatican authorities in 2024 and 2025, without any known public response or record of action.

On April 8, 2026, Infovaticana published the complaint. On April 9, the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, presided over by Mons. Carlos Enrique García Camader, announced that Santarsiero was stepping down from the General Secretariat "to dedicate himself to the clarification of the facts". On April 14, the bishop, together with his Vicar Alejandro Alvites, convened and presided over a meeting with the entire diocesan clergy in the auditorium of the I. E. P. Liceo Español San Juan Bautista de Hualmay, province of Huaura. There, instead of maintaining the minimal discretion required in any ongoing sanctioning procedure, he publicly identified his own victims before the presbyterium and promoted the signature of a letter of support.

Meanwhile, the victims—formal complainants in an open canonical procedure—have received nothing. Not a notification of acceptance for processing. Not a summons for supplementary proceedings. Not the opening of a communication and assistance channel. Not a single word of accompaniment from the ecclesiastical authority conducting the investigation. Investigation? Absolute silence.

And, while this silence continues, the investigated party travels to Rome.

What the canonical legislator did not make explicit

Whoever reviews the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the norms De delictis reservatis, the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi—in its 2019 formulation and in the consolidated version of 2023—and the Vademecum of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on the treatment of abuse cases, will find a carefully articulated system centered on the investigated party: right to defense, presumption of innocence, legal assistance, appeals. One will not find, however, a clear and enforceable procedural statute for the victim. Not because the legislator decided to exclude them—it would be absurd to think so—but because there are principles so elementary, so obvious, so structural to the very concept of "process" in any civilized legal tradition, that the canonical legislator, presumably, did not consider it necessary to make them explicit in detail.

Well then: what is not made explicit, in current canonical practice, is simply not applied.

Upon the legislator's silence, diocesan practice has erected a regime in which the victim:

— Is not informed of the admission of the complaint.
— Is not assigned a file number.
— Is not notified of the procedural phase in which the procedure finds itself.
— Is not permitted to submit written statements.
— Is not permitted to contribute additional evidence.
— Is not permitted to propose witnesses or proceedings.
— Is not permitted to make a reasonably minimal follow-up of the case.
— Is not notified of decisions that directly affect them.
— Is not communicated the dismissal, referral to Rome, or sanction imposed, except in the generic—or not so formal—terms that the authority deems appropriate.

Imagine, for an instant, transferring this model to the penal sphere of the State. Imagine a victim of a serious crime who goes to file a complaint and is told that they will not be able to appear in the proceedings, that nothing will be notified to them, that they will not be able to submit evidence, that they will have no copy of the proceedings, that they will not be able to appeal the dismissal, and that they will learn of the outcome, if at all, through the press. Can you imagine the delirium? Can you imagine a judicial body seriously arguing that such a thing is compatible with a process worthy of that name?

Well, that is, today, the de facto reality of canon law applied to cases of sexual abuse.

Dozens of cases, one same pattern

The author of this piece, along with other professionals, follows dozens of files opened in Spain and Hispanic America. The dynamic is always the same: the complaint is received, an internal procedure is initiated of which the victim hears nothing more, an investigation is conducted of which only the ecclesiastical authority and, where applicable, the investigated party have knowledge, and it concludes—with sanction, dismissal, or referral to Rome—in an action of which the victim learns, if they learn at all, from third parties or the press.

These are not, therefore, local pathologies attributable to specific bishops, poorly organized curias, or negligent investigators. These are a structural pattern. And a structural pattern demands a structural explanation.

The usual justification is lack of resources. There is no personnel. There are no means. There is no budget. This argument should be carefully dismantled.

First, the alleged insufficiency of resources does not exempt, in any known legal system, from compliance with the essential guarantees of the process. A collapsed body may take longer; what it cannot do is decide to dispense with notification to the parties. Scarcity of resources affects the pace, not the substance.

Second, the elementary acts that are being omitted—acknowledgment of receipt, assignment of a file number, notification of the procedural phase, opening of a bidirectional communication channel—do not require extraordinary resources. They require will. The diocese of Huacho has been perfectly capable of convening all its clergy in a parish hall and promoting the signature of a letter of support for the investigated bishop. Logistical capacity exists. The question is to whom it decides to direct itself.

Third, and perhaps most relevant: the zero cost of a receipt notification contrasts with the enormous cost—pastoral, legal, reputational, and human—of the institutional revictimization produced by silence. The supposed economy of means proves, in the end, infinitely more expensive for the Church itself.

The core of the problem: a law without a victim

It is important to state the diagnosis with the utmost clarity: current canonical penal law, in its practical application, has consolidated a conception of the process in which the victim is an object of the procedure, not a subject of it. They are the source of the notitia criminis, but cease to exist procedurally the moment that notice is incorporated into the file. They are the origin of the machinery, but are considered extraneous to its operation.

This conception is incompatible with three principles that belong to the hard core of any minimally guaranteeing procedural system, and that need not be made explicit in a specific canon to be enforceable, because they form part of the very definition of just process:

1. The principle of audience. Whoever has a legitimate interest in the proceeding has the right to be heard in it. The victim of abuse has, beyond any doubt, a legitimate—and qualified—interest in the proceeding brought against their aggressor. Denying them a hearing is not an organizational expediency decision; it is a structural violation.

2. The principle of contradiction. A procedural truth cannot be constructed on the basis exclusively of information provided by one party alone. The initial complaint does not exhaust the possible contribution of the victim: new elements, new evidence, new testimony, contradictions in the version of the investigated party that only the victim can point out may emerge. Closing the door to them after the complaint is equivalent to deliberately renouncing an essential evidentiary source.

3. The principle of information. Without information there is no defense, no protection, no possibility of reacting to harmful decisions. A victim who does not know what phase their proceeding is in, what decisions have been adopted, what deadlines apply, and what remedies are available, is a victim whose content has been emptied of any supposed right that is claimed to be recognized.

How much longer?

The question that hangs in the air is whether the Church is willing to continue maintaining this state of affairs. Whether it is willing to continue processing cases like that of Huacho, that of Lute in Chiclayo, and so many others, under a procedural model that, if applied in any other forum, would be declared null and void for violation of essential guarantees.

One is not asking to mimetically transfer the categories of civil or penal procedural law of the State to the canonical sphere. One is asking for the minimum: that receipt be acknowledged, that a file number be assigned, that the procedural phase be reported, that a bidirectional communication channel be opened, that the victim be permitted to contribute evidence and propose proceedings, that they be notified of decisions that affect them, that they be given a copy of the file when they request it, and that they be permitted, where applicable, to appeal.

The minimum. The elementary. That which is inherent to the very concept of process.

Until this occurs, cases like Huacho or like that of Lute in Chiclayo will continue to cast over the Church a shadow that no communication, no commission, nor any institutional management will be able to dispel. The problem is not communicational. It is structural. And it demands immediate normative and practical correction.