Priest arrested for drugs on Costa del Sol defended clergyman accused of paedophilia two years ago

This is not the first controversy that the Spanish priest Carlos Loriente García, arrested in the early hours of Monday morning in Torremolinos with a dozen designer drug tablets, has been involved in. A couple of years ago, in the middle of the paedophile trial against the clergyman Pedro Rodríguez Ramos, the canon from Toledo circulated a message to the clergy via WhatsApp in which he questioned the complaint filed by a former seminarian trainee priest who claimed to have been a victim of abuse.

In the message he shared with his fellow religious colleagues, the priest said he was convinced of the innocence of Rodríguez Ramos, with whom he shared a friendship, and blamed the press, as reported by El País, which has had access to a letter sent by the victim to the Prefect of the Holy See's Dicastery for the Clergy denouncing Loriente.

However, the newspaper reported that the ex-seminarian never received a response to his complaint, nor did the church take any action against Loriente. The Archbishopric of Toledo, for its part, has avoided commenting on this episode after being asked by this newspaper.

It should be remembered that although Pedro Rodríguez was sentenced in the first instance to seven years in prison, the High Court of Justice of Castilla y León acquitted him due to judicial errors in the investigation which, according to the judgement, violated his right to defence. The case is now awaiting the ruling of the Supreme Court.

Yesterday, however, after the arrest of the Toledo priest was reported in several media, the Archbishop issued a statement confirming his arrest and regretting "deeply the facts that have caused the arrest". The church also expressed its condemnation of any criminal behaviour that the priest may have committed and expressed "their full confidence in justice".

Although the church considers that the responsibility for the facts lies within the personal sphere of the detainee, it expressed their willingness to cooperate with the police and assured that an investigation has been opened and he has been provisionally suspended from his ministry and office, although he had not been performing his duties for some time.

According to archbishopric sources, the canon declined to renew his position and left the vicarage a couple of weeks ago, citing "health reasons". "He said that he was undergoing tests to rule out certain conditions".