Priest is Accused of Sexual Abuse Diário de Pernanbuco (Pernambuco) October 16, 2008  [Translated into English by BishopAccountability.org. Click below to see original article in Portuguese.]  http://www.old.pernambuco.com/ultimas/nota.asp?materia=20081016073121&assunto=26&onde=Brasil View as PDF The Civil Police of the Federal District are investigating a case of sexual abuse involving a priest and a young man from Ceilândia, a satellite city of Brasília. Wilson José Santos Pereira, 49, presides over the South Episcopal Vicariate that covers more than 70 parishes. He was accused by the young man who claims to have had an affair with the priest for 3 years. At beginning of the alleged relationship, the boy was 14 and was an altar boy at the parish of Our Lady of Glory in Ceilândia. Adval Cardoso de Matos, police chief of the 15º Police Station, opened an investigation and will summon the religious leader. He has already heard from a dozen people and received a CD in which the priest apologizes and begs the young man to forgive him and forget everything that happened. Upon learning that he was going to be charged, the priest left Brasília. Yesterday, the 15th, upon the opening of the police investigation of Father Wilson José Santos Pereira, accused of pedophilia, a group of attorneys, on behalf of the Metropolitan Curia, went to 15º Police Station of Ceilândia, Brasilia’s satellite city. According to the police chief Adval Cardoso de Matos, they made themselves available to the police. At the Metropolitan Curia’s head office, assistants to His Excellency João Braz de Avis, again, said that he and all the other bishops and priests from the federal capital are incommunicado at a spiritual retreat that will not finish until tomorrow the 17th. Distrust prevailed among the parishioners of the parish of Our Lady of Glory. A young woman who works in a store close to the church said that she did not believe that Father Wilson was capable of doing what the young man reported.  “This boy doesn’t smell like a flower,” she declared, but cut short the conversation when asked what facts would discredit him. “This is the act of someone who wants attention.” According to her, “Father Wilson is a very strict person.”

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