Priest and altar boy video sparks sex abuse investigation
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A Brazilian priest is under police investigation after a video of him having sex with an altar boy was sent to the country's national TV network and broadcast in a report. The author is allegedly one of the priest's victims, a 21-year-old who says he filmed the video secretly after he was abused by the priest for nine years.
A Brazilian priest is under police investigation after a video of him having sex with an altar boy was sent to the country's national TV network and broadcast in a report. The author is allegedly one of the priest's victims, a 21-year-old who says he filmed the video secretly after he was abused by the priest for nine years.
WARNING - GRAPHIC IMAGES
The video was aired by in a report by the state network Sistema Brasileiro de TV (SBT) on Thursday 11 March. According to the report, the video shows 82-year-old Msgr. Luiz Marques Barbosa in bed with a 19-year-old who had been working for him for four years.
The channel says that the amateur footage was sent in anonymously. Journalists then investigated the Catholic archdiocese of Penedo, in the northeast state of Alagoas, where the alleged abused took place. They say that other altar boys came forward and the author emerged as a 21-year-old who said he had been abused by Barbosa since the age of 12.
The report includes an interview with Barbosa, in which he doesn't deny having sexual relations with men. "I think it is more (a problem) of homosexuality than paedophilia", he says.
Barbosa has been suspended from the church along with two other priests also accused of having sex with boys and young men. Results of the investigation are expected at the end of April.