According to local media, 26 priests in Colombia’s Catholic Church have had their names made public after being under investigation for allegedly abusing youngsters there. In reaction to a court decision in favor of Juan Pablo Barrientos, a journalist looking into an alleged network of pedophile clergy, the Archdiocese of Medellin made public the list of persons accused between 1995 and 2019. In a video broadcast on Saturday, Barrientos, who has been looking into priestly sexual assault for years, said that most of the priests in question had been suspended for a short period of time before returning to their roles as priests. Barrientos was successful in getting the Archdiocese of Medellin to release the list after he persuaded the courts to grant his request.

According to the Church document, the abuses were perpetrated years ago, but the judiciary, which has not commented on the investigations, received 14 of the allegations on Thursday.

The institution wishes to “demonstrate transparency, devotion to the truth and the absence of any purpose of cover-up,” according to Monsignor Ricardo Tobon, Archbishop of Medellin.

The religious leader accused Barrientos of waging “an aggressive smear campaign against the Church” in a video that was uploaded to the Archdiocese’s Twitter account.

The Church revealed the names, the journalist claimed, “because the Constitutional Court obliged it to do so.”

2019 saw the publication of Barrientos’ “Let the Children Come to Me,” an investigation exposing pederasty and cover-up inside the church in the predominantly Roman Catholic South American nation.

The Church made unsuccessful legal attempts to halt the book’s release.

In the nation, at least six clergymen have served prison terms for raping children.

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