Carmelite Priest Arrested in Tarija, Bolivia, as Others Face Abuse Accusations

Allegations of sexual abuse against Jesuit priests in Bolivia have been joined by a case involving a Carmelite priest, who was recently arrested by authorities, and by accusations against another Carmelite and a Franciscan.

In a statement to the Bolivian newspaper Página Siete, a former seminarian of the Carmelite order said that in 2014 he was sexually abused by Father Milton Murillo, who was then administrator of the formation house in La Paz. According to the complainant, Father Murillo allegedly pressured seminarians to allow him to perform a medical examination, during which inappropriate touching occurred. The complainant said that anyone who refused was exposed to reprisals or expulsion from the community. He also said that a group of seminarians tried to inform the then Carmelite superior, Father Garvin Grech, without result.

Página Siete reported that Father Grech was also the subject of an alleged abuse report made by a seminarian. Jeanethe Melogno, his former secretary, made accusations against him as well. Given the lack of response from church authorities, she said she decided to publicly name Father Grech. Former seminarians then approached her to say that they had been abused by Father Murillo. The alleged victims said they wrote a letter to Bishop Jorge Saldías, who was named an auxiliary bishop of La Paz in 2014, but that when they tried to deliver it they were turned away. One of them told Página Siete that the prelate had tried to bribe them, saying he offered 50,000 bolivianos (more than $7,000) so they would stay silent. These are allegations that the source reports and that have not been adjudicated.

A relative of one of the alleged victims filed a complaint with authorities, and on May 17 Father Murillo was jailed. The Minister of Government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia said on Twitter that the Carmelite was accused of aggravated sexual abuse. The minister stated, “There will be no impunity of any kind, and even less so in cases of this nature.” At the time of his arrest, Father Murillo was serving as pastor of San Roque parish in Tarija. The source reports that he had earlier been transferred to Rome and later allowed to return to Bolivia, to a parish that Father Grech directed.

According to the news outlet Los Tiempos, Father Grech left Bolivia for Argentina on the day Father Murillo was arrested. The departmental commander of the Tarija police, Edson Claure, confirmed this on May 19. The source says Father Grech was due to appear before the prosecutor’s office that same day.

Separately, Marina Córdova Alvéstegui publicly claimed, on the Facebook page of the Society of Jesus in Bolivia, that she was touched inappropriately 26 years earlier by the Polish Franciscan Eusebio Konkolewski. She said the incident occurred during a “social-work trip that we made” in her last year of high school. She said she stayed silent for fear of being expelled from St. Ignatius School, and that she thought her complaint was unlikely to be heard and that authorities would consider her an attempt to discredit the institution.

The source also names Alejandro Mestre, archbishop emeritus of La Paz and former secretary of the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference, among the Jesuits accused of sexual abuse. The source notes that Mestre died in 1988. The Society of Jesus in Bolivia said in a statement published May 19 that in 2021 it received and acted upon a complaint concerning abuse of a sixth-grade student at San Calixto School in La Paz, where Mestre had been a teacher while still a priest.

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