Another Spanish Jesuit Abused More Than 100 Indigenous Girls in Bolivia
At least seventy of his victims, most of them from the indigenous Guaraní population, are identified by name in Roma’s diary.
It is the second diary of a pedophile Jesuit in Bolivia, following that of fellow Spaniard Alfonso Pedrajas. The investigation against Roma began in March 2019 at the request of the Jesuits.
Roma who was confined to a wheelchair died months later in Bolivia on August 6, 2019, at the age of 84. Therefore, the files of the investigation remained unpublished until now.
Before his death, Roma signed a confession before a notary: “I confess, freely and voluntarily, that at the time when I was stationed in the parish of Charagua, from about 1998 to 2002, I allowed myself, in some situations, to be carried away by libidinous acts, inappropriate for a religious person, with girls between the ages of eight and eleven, with whom I had a pastoral relationship.”
“Apostle of Children”
Luis Roma was born in Barcelona on September 12, 1935. He entered the Jesuits at the age of 18. Two years later, he travelled to South America as a missionary.
In 1987, Roma worked as the right-hand man to the provincial superior Father Luis Palomera, a friend from Barcelona. Palomera described Roma this way: “He seems to show very little interest in what others are going through. He lives in a very personal, segmented, cerebral world” and “works in the shadows.”
In 1994, a new provincial superior made Roma a parish priest and director of a new school in Charagua. Roma was considered as “the apostle of the children" who "filled his van with little girls.”
He described in detail how he gathered the girls in groups, showered with them and took snapshots of them. Days later, he would return to look at these pictures and masturbate.
Diary Notes
Excerpts of Roma’s diary entries: “I could touch her anywhere. I almost really devoured her with my mouth. My hand on her legs and higher up. She insisted she wanted cookies. We went upstairs and I took almost twenty pictures of her. On the bed, sitting, standing, up, down, everything.”
Another excerpt: “What a lack of ability to express what is inside me: the truth is that I would eat them" - "I touch them all with my hands" - "I feel the warmth of the intimate zone, with natural warmth! How beautiful these girls are, naked they smell of soap!”
Roma also embezzled money. He diverted funds earmarked by the Jesuits for humanitarian works to buy “gifts” for the girls he abused. He also used embezzled funds to pay his closest associate, a young man who became his driver and companion.
In November 1998, Roma notes in his diary “some problems” without describing them in detail. He admits to having gone through “a time of trouble” because of his “sin.” He “felt destroyed”.
Nevertheless, he justifies himself with the famous foul excuse that "God made me the way I am".
Around Christmas 1998 he admitted his “lack of maturity” and wanted to stop molesting girls: “I have packed up all the damn video material and have decided not to watch or get excited or live that lust and lasciviousness.” He wrote of his “obsession” and “sick emotionality”: “I even seem to feel disgusted.”
But 76 days later, Roma resumed his abuse, photographing and filming girls in Charagua.
The diary ends in September 2000 with him acknowledging his pedophilic nature: “What can I say about the obsession? For God’s sake, I get scared sometimes" - "I see myself as ‘abnormal,’ as a harasser of girls, as a potential rapist, as a danger to the little ones!”
Superiors “Knew Nothing”
Roma’s brother Francesco, another Jesuit, is also credibly accused of paedophilia.
ElPais.com adds that there are personal letters indicating that several superiors in Spain and Bolivia knew about the abuses of the Roma brothers in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 2006, Roma was transferred to Sucre, the de jure capital of Bolivia. Superiors said that it was for embezzling, not abuse.
In Sucre, a fellow Jesuit discovered Roma’s archive, but it took him ten more years to report the photos, only after he left the Jesuits. The provincial superior at the time, Father Osvaldo Chirveches, assured him that he “knew nothing” about the abuse.
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