While US associations want to drag the Pope to The Hague, someone in Trieste is accusing Catholics to be little forgiving of pedophiles that have already paid the price with justice. The paradoxical case of Moncini
Andrea Tornielli
Trieste

It may seem paradoxical, but even this sort of thing happens in Italy. In the days when American associations of the victims of the clergy pedophile crisis endeavor to bring the Pope, who has fought the phenomenon more than anyone else, before the International Court of Justice at The Hague, there are those in Trieste who accuse the Church of being too harsh, too concerned about the protection of children and not merciful enough with pedophiles.

 

The story concerns a local festival dedicated to children, which was held last week, organized by the "Onlus Good Practices" Association and sponsored by ASL (Azienda Sanitaria Locale, Italy's local health authority) and the municipality of Trieste. Among the proponents of the initiative was Sandro Moncini, now seventy years old, whose court case came under the news spotlight in 1988. Arrested in the U.S. for distributing child pornography, the man, at the time, was a well known businessman in the city, formerly affiliated with P2 (an Italian Masonic lodge) and President of the Automobile Club. He was framed by an FBI agent who recorded dozens of telephone calls while pretending to belong to an international pedophile network.

 

"What can I do to this little animal? Can I chain her, whip her?" According to American police, Moncini had asked this question by phone before going to New York where he had booked two rooms at a hotel in the city, and had asked for a ten year old Mexican girl whom he could torture, perhaps even to the point of death. The entrepreneur would defend himself by saying that those chilling telephone inquiries were only "a fantasy" and not a prelude to a real encounter. Handcuffed at JFK Airport, he was sentenced to one year in prison for having pornographic material involving minors, sent from Italy to the United States.


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