A Christian priest from the Syro Malankara Catholic Church in Kanyakumari has been arrested after scandalous videos and pictures of him with several women surfaced on social media. The priest in question has been identified as Benedict Anto, who was serving as a priest in the church for many years.
According to sources, the videos were put on social media by a group of people who ‘attacked’ him a few days earlier and took away his laptop. The content of the videos and pictures was extremely scandalous and has caused wide outrage. The videos and pictures show Benedict Anto in compromising positions with multiple women.
Anto has been accused of predatory sexual behaviour. He would send obscene messages to women and also kiss and touch women inappropriately, as per reports. He would record himself with women doing intimate acts and use the videos to threaten the victims to keep quiet. Tamil media has reported that the priest’s targets include minor girls too.
A woman named Mini Ajitha complained to the police stating that Priest Anto had filed a false case against her son Austin Gino because he had confronted him for harassing his female friend, who is a medical student.
According to a report published in Organiser, Benedict Anto is a Syro Malankara Catholic church priest in Kanyakumari West District. The 30 -year-old Christian priest is from Marthandam near Nagercoil in the Kanyakumari district.
This is not the first case where a Christian priest has been accused of predatory sexual behaviour. Opindia in 2022 had reported about Priest Pondson John who was arrested for sexually abusing a minor girl twice, once at Church while ‘counselling’ her and once in her own home.
In 2018 we reported that A Priest, who was also a principal in a reputed English medium convent school in Pune, was arrested from Mumbai for allegedly sexually abusing a student.
The abuse by Church fathers is a global phenomenon. In 2019, an Argentinian court sentenced two Catholic priests to more than 40 years in prison in Mendoza on after they were found guilty of the sexual abuse of as many as 10 deaf children of a Catholic-run school.
Similar incidents have been reported in other parts of the world, leading to calls for greater accountability and transparency within the Church.