The Jesuit provincial in Bolivia, Father Bernado Mercado, has said that he had no knowledge of the sexual abuse that has been uncovered among Jesuits there.
Father Mercardo said that as a young man he had admired many of the Jesuits who are now charged with abuse. “Personally, for me they were great missionaries,” he said, and he wanted to be like them.
“If I had known, not even if I were crazy would I have become a Jesuit,” he said, in testimony before a legislative committee investigating the order.