Disgraced Sexual Abuser Bishop Zanchetta Released On Parole

Bishop Gustavo Óscar Bishop Zanchetta released on parolewas released on parole by an Argentinian court on Friday after serving only part of his four and a half year sentence for aggravated sexual abuse of two seminarians.

In total, Zanchetta only spent about three years and a half under house arrest in a monastery in Orán, including an eight-month hospital stay in Rome between Nov. 2024 and June this year.

Zanchetta was convicted in March 2022 and sentenced to four and a half years in prison for “simple, continued sexual abuse aggravated by the role as a minister of worship.” However, following an appeal supported by local Church authorities, he was allowed to serve his sentence, first in a retired priests’ house, and then in a monastery.

Local Oran courts consistently denied Zanchetta’s requests for house arrest, authorization to travel to Italy for treatment, and for release on parole request. But in all instances, the Appeals’ Court of Salta approved the bishop’s petitions.

In November 2024, he was allowed to travel to Rome to receive cardiac medical treatment, after his attorneys argued there “were no medical centers in Argentina that guaranteed the necessary conditions for the surgery, and that the procedure in Italy would be cheaper.”

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