ROME – An Italian priest has been placed under house arrest on charges of aggravated sexual assault against a minor, while also facing at least five other charges of abuse in other communities said to date from 2011 to 2013.

The arrest came after Father Ciro Panigara, 48, stepped down as the pastor of a small parish in the northern Italian province of Brescia earlier this year. The resignation came after a 15-year-old boy reported what media accounts have described as “inappropriate attention” by Panigara to teachers at a local school.

According to media reports, Panigara had invited the boy to an overnight youth event and then, citing the cold temperature, suggested the boy spend the night with him in his own bed.

The episode comes as activists on behalf of survivors are pressing the Italian Catholic church to engage in the sort of systematic study of its record vis-à-vis clerical abuse that other European nations such as France and Germany have already conducted.

At the time Panigara resigned in January, he had only been the pastor of San Paolo, a community of some 4,500 people, for roughly two months. At the time, Bishop Pierantonio Tremolada of Bresica sent a letter to the parish saying only that “situations and critical issues have emerged which recommend that he immediately interrupt his experience in your parish communities.”

Later, however, the diocese released a statement acknowledging that Panigara had been accused of sexual abuse.

“The news deeply saddens us,” the statement said. “The grave tenor of the accusations against Father Ciro Panigara must be carefully evaluated.”

“The priest, following certain verbal reports, was immediately suspended from his pastoral ministry by the bishop with a precautionary canonical procedure on January 10, 2025, while awaiting, and in respect for, investigations by the competent civil authorities which subsequently have been launched.”

The local carabinieri, Italy’s military police which investigated the case, also released a written statement on the arrest.

Inquiries, it said, “have allowed us to ascertain that the [priest] under investigation, in his capacity as curate and pastor of two communities in the province of Brescia, from 2011 to 2013 and again in 2024, allegedly carried out numerous acts of aggravated sexual violence against some minors who were entrusted to him for carrying out activities within the parish.”

Local media reports indicate that although there were no formal accusations against Panigara from that earlier period, he was nonetheless sent for psychological counseling afterwards and judged fit to continue in ministry.

The Brescia diocese has pledged full cooperation with the ongoing investigations.

“The drama of minors as victims of abuse cannot be in any way undervalued, all the more so if it involves priests,” the diocesan statement said, while adding that the rights of the accused party must also be “respected and protected.”

“The measures taken are strong and painful,” it said. “We trust they’ll lead as rapidly as possible to clarifying the facts and the responsibility.”

“We manifest our closeness to all the persons involved in this painful episode,” the diocese said, “and we assure our full collaboration with the civil authorities.”

Panigara’s arrest may renew calls for the Italian Catholic church to carry out a comprehensive national review of past abuse cases, which it has so far insisted on limiting to the period 2020-2022.

In January, however, the far northern Italian diocese of Bolzano-Brixen, on the border with Austria, released its own more sweeping study, covering the period from 1964, when the diocese was founded, until 2023.

The study identified 67 possible abuse situations, including 53 backed by firm or plausible evidence. It found that 41 priests were involved in these cases, representing 4.1 percent of all the clergy who had served in the diocese during the nearly sixty years covered by the research.

The authors of the study, pointing out that victims often wait for decades before speaking out, said their findings had probably only uncovered the tip of an iceberg, with “a high number of hidden cases,” they said.

Activists on behalf of abuse survivors in Italy have called on the powerful national bishops’ conference, known by its Italian acronym CEI, to conduct a similar review on a national level, but so far the conference has not responded.