Pablo Vio is 32 years old, he is a communicator and advertising creative, and one of his passions is traveling. “Understanding other realities and meeting other people helped me in the healing process,” he says. Together with nine former classmates, he denounced the authorities of the Colegio del Salvador and the Company of Jesus as “necessary participants in sexual abuse, corruption of minors and aggravated cover-up.””, for acts committed by the former priest César Fretes (died in 2015), between 2001 and 2002.
in dialogue with Page 12, Pablo reflects on the redefinition of trauma due to child sexual abuse (ASI) and the importance of guaranteeing “respectful and empathetic listening spaces” for the victims. “We are survivors in search of justice. We fight so that no other childhood goes through the same thing”remarks the young man.
–How old were you at that time?
–I was 11 years old and in sixth grade.
–How did the events happen?
–César Fretes worked as a sixth grade tutor and every year he was in charge of 70 boys. In general, the tutors were authorized to take us out of the classroom during class hours to talk about any personal, family, subjects, etc. Fretes took advantage of his role as “spiritual guide” to build trust with the students, manipulate them and ultimately perpetrate the abuses. That was his modus operandi.
–How long did Fretes work at the school?
–He started working in 1995. Two years later he was given the position of tutor and he remained there until they decided to transfer him, in 2003. Within that period, only in 2000 was he not at the school because he had traveled to Venezuela and Colombia to perform their “Third Probation”.
–Where and why were they transferred?
–To the province of Mendoza. The school wanted to avoid a “scandal” after that year a family informed the directors that their son had been abused by Fretes. Previously, in 2001 and 1998, other families had also warned managers about this person’s behavior. Fretes submitted his resignation to the college in March 2004.
Did the authorities tell you the reason for the transfer?
-No. Faced with the repeated abuses committed by Fretes, the school chose to remain silent. They never notified the families, nor the teachers, nor did they resort to justice. The Mendoza community was not alerted either. Even the then Jesuit provincial, Alfonso Gómez, thanked him for his “valuable service” rendered during those years.
How was life at school for you?
–The “rumor” about the abuses began to spread… We made “jokes” between colleagues. We have talked about it a lot with the kids, we understand that this kind of “bullying” came from the desire to be able to tell what had happened to us, without falling into the place of fear and shame. I clarify, I do not justify any type of bullying. Perhaps subconsciously, we wanted some responsible adult to hear the “rumor” and take action on the matter. In any case, the school preferred to continue managing itself with total secrecy. When we started high school the issue was “covering up”. But it was like a pressure cooker that was going to break out at some point.
And finally it came out…
–Yeah. The years passed, we entered the adult stage and there was more and more information about these topics, be it in movies, news or people’s stories. The process of resignifying the trauma due to sexual abuse is very long. It was not easy, I had moments of anguish, of pain. For a long time I was angry with myself for “allowing” this to happen. Society silences victims by making them believe it was their fault. I was encouraged to speak 17 years later, my brother was the first person to listen to me. Then, at Christmas dinner in 2019, I got together with some ex-colleagues and there I met a person whose family had denounced Fretes in 2003. Two or three months later, one of my best friends, Gonzalo Elizondo, told me He said he wanted to tell me something and it turned out that he had also been through that situation.
What happened after that meeting?
–With Gonzalo we were very mobilized and we decided to put our chests into this fight. In July 2022, we filed an administrative claim with the school authorities and the Jesuit Community. At first we walked this path alone, not everyone was prepared to reopen that wound. When we talk about survivors of abuse, it is necessary to respect and validate the times of each person. We knew it was going to be difficult, we’ve been paddling through a lot of painful situations for almost three years. But we are standing. And other kids were encouraged to speak.
–Why did you decide to go from the administrative claim to the criminal complaint, filed last February?
–Because we expected some explanation from those responsible. Why hadn’t the families been informed? Why had an abuser been kept in contact with children for so many years? We didn’t find anything like that, they didn’t even show remorse. They justified their inaction by saying that they had been handled according to the current law and that therefore they did not have the obligation to report. We are talking about a very serious crime. If the school authorities received several alerts, at a minimum, they should have removed this person, launched an investigation and informed the educational community. It became clear to us that Fretes was able to continue with the abuses because he was backed by a network of accessories and accomplices.
–What came out of that instance?
–On March 10, the Justice carried out two simultaneous raids, one at the Colegio del Salvador and another at the Centro Loyola headquarters. The documents found showed that those responsible lied and concealed information. In the first place, they had never investigated Fretes. In addition, it was proven that the first warnings to the families were in 1998 and not in 2003 as they claimed. Throughout 2004, this person attended the Padre Llorens de Mendoza School, and that same year he returned to “visit” our school, without anyone being able to stop him. He had not been expelled from the Society of Jesus in 2007 either, but he himself submitted his resignation.
–What could you say about the representations of the men who went through this situation? Did they change over the years?
–Sexual abuse is a matter of power. Many times the speeches are re-victimizing, they generate a bigger wound by questioning the victim. Why didn’t you speak earlier? What are you looking for denouncing after 20 years? It is often repeated both in the private sphere, as well as in the public, in the family, at school, in justice. In turn, machismo does not allow us to feel vulnerable as men. According to this logic, having been abused and telling it would put at risk that quota of “macho” that, supposedly, you have to have. In this sense, the feminist struggle has brought structural changes that allow men to be able to speak in respectful and empathetic spaces. Our search for justice is also that these re-victimizing discourses cease to exist.
Q: Do you think that the initiatives of Pope Francis will contribute to the clarification of this type of case?
–Looking for answers in the leader of an institution with thousands of cases of pedophilia is like looking for needles in a haystack. I understand that for some people these answers may be important. We sent him a handwritten letter last year, to this day he has not responded. His silence says a lot. It is precisely the silence that has generated complicity and has allowed this crime to continue occurring.
Report: Karla Góngora
