By Marco Tosatti
The charges against Father
Stefano Manelli, founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate have been
dropped. After about a year of investigations, the Deputy State Prosecutor at
the Court of Avellino, Doctor A. Del Bene, has asked for the closing of the
proceedings against the religious, whose Order is still under commissioning without
a valid reason having ever been given by the Congregation for Religious.
Father Stefano Manelli had recently
been the subject of a particularly virulent press campaign – which seems in
reality to have been promoted and inspired by someone within his own religious
order – with wild allegations, scandalmongering statements of ex-sisters, and even
the suspicion of murder. The saga of the Franciscans of the Immaculate has left
nothing untouched, and there have been those in the mass media who have
followed the flood of biased allegations with perhaps too much enthusiasm and
without much critical evaluation.
Now that the legal
authorities – with the motion to dismiss the case – bring justice to this
campaign, which could be considered defamatory, it emerges that the founder of
the Institute of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate was unjustly accused
of having harmed the physical and moral integrity of the Sisters at the convent
of Frigento, carrying out acts of sexual violence and abuse against them.
Those close to him commented
that "the outcome of the investigation has brought clarity to the “assumed
allegations” restoring justice and dignity to Father Stefano Manelli who for
some time has been the subject of slanderous, defamatory attacks, amplified by
the media outlets."
And now that the legal
authorities have made their ruling, and it seems that Father Manelli hasn’t
raped, abused or killed anyone, the question returns, to pose to the Congregation
for Religious, to its prefect, and to its secretary: what has Father Manelli done;
and what have the Franciscans of the Immaculate done to be treated with such
harshness?
History, in its irony, would
have it that the news of the dismissal of this investigation would come precisely
at the end of the year of Mercy ...
Read original
Italian article here.
