Catholic Church Sex Scandal Rocks Brazil

The wave of sexual abuse allegations against the Roman Catholic Church has reached Brazil, where three priests are accused of sexually abusing altar boys. One case of alleged abuse was broadcast on television last week.

According to the Associated Press, the SBT network aired a video last Thursday that claimed to show 82-year-old Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa having sex with a 19-year-old altar boy who worked for him for four years. A 21-year-old man who also alleges that Barbosa abused him as a boy secretly filmed the footage last year.

Graphic footage from SBT appears below in the video clip.

Monsignor Raimundo Gomes, 52, and Father Edilson Duarte, 43, are also under investigation for having sex with boys and young men. All three priests hail from the Penedo archdiocese in the northeastern state of Alagoas and have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation, according to the AP.

A reporter for SBT visited Barbosa at his home last month to talk about the allegations. When asked whether he thought the region had problems with pedophilia, the priest said, ""I think it is more [a problem] of homosexuality than pedophilia."

The accusations against priests in Brazil follow a recent flood of abuse charges against the Catholic Church in Ireland and Germany, the home of Pope Benedict XVI.