English summary and recapitulation by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

The accusations are explosive. Here is a summary in English of the 20 minute testimony by Michela Tonolo, a former member of the religious community of women founded by Don. Alessandro Minutella, Pastor of St. John Bosco, Palermo. This video was published this morning in Italy, on July 23, 2023.

Upon arriving, her sim card was taken away by Don Minutella. She was not allowed to recharge her mobile phone to take videos. She was watched continually, denied the same liberties of other sisters.

She wanted to leave from the beginning of her 3 year experience, because of the orgiastic dances perpetrated by the female community, encouraged on in this by Don Minutella himself.

She says her religious community is run by indecent immoral lustful sisters, who are possessed by the devil. And that Don Minutella wants them  to reign over the sisters, because of his own unchecked lusts.

She calls the community of women religious, Don Minutella’s harem.

She repudiates the charges Don Minutella has made publicly against her: of being unstable psychologically: though she is a registered clinical psychologist. Of blaspheming in Church: though she was only crying out for help after being physically assaulted by the sisters.

In response for her firm stand against physical immorality, she was relentlessly persecuted by the sisters, on the orders of Don Minutella, says she.

She says this tactic was used on her and on others driven out of the community to break her psychologically: she would be ordered to do something, but then prevented from doing it by some of the sisters, and then viciously and inhumanely faulted by Don MInutella for failing to do what she was told. All the while he would praise the sisters who were his “lovers”.

She was given the duty to make 300 rosaries in a few days by hand, and after turning in her work, that work was claimed by sisters who did not do any of it.

Again, a certain song would be announced for Mass, and as she began to sing it, the other sisters would sing another, to make her appear shameful in front of the congregation assembled.

Then, in a final act of violence, one evening during the “Prayer for liberation”, her fellow sisters assaulted her physically to prevent her from going to Don Minutella to clarify things, going so far as to drive their fingernails into her flesh. Then, when Don Minutella intervened he made a video of her in her tormented state and later accused her of blasphemy, though all she was doing was asking the Lord to deliver her from the Hell in which she found herself.

She goes on to recount that during these post-dinner dances among the sisters, one of the sisters did a belly dance, and he took great delight in it.

During this video Don Minutella states a falsehood: namely that in all religious communities there must be recreation after the evening meal. Again, that it is licit that sisters in a cloister dance together during such recreations. No religious should ever dance. Dancing was condemned by all the Saints and Our Lady reiterates this at Fatima. That a religious community of one sex should dance together is without a doubt a most grave sign of moral disorder that should be investigated by Church authorities.

Tonolo then makes a specific claim, that one of the sisters, most intimate with Don Minutella is a certain Roberta Delfone, who was a professional belly dancer. She mentions this to refute Don Minutella’s public claim that the sisters were falsely accused of belly dancing. Tonolo adds that Delfone taught the entire community how to belly dance so as to sexually excite Don Minutella.

Then at 13:50 in this video, the video made by another member of Don Minutella’s Handmaids is shown, during which a sister, whom Tonolo identifies as Valentina, bounces up and down and left to right. Don Minutella is sitting, it appears with his back to her. Tonolo claims that while dancing Valentina bounces her body against Don Minutella’s back, and all the while he is drinking liquor and smoking, watching the other sisters dance.

Then in the video, there is an excerpt where Don Minutella says they recreate often to drive away the Devil and devils.

Tonolo then adds that they often dance in the dark, so that they can rub into one another more and satisfy their desires.

Then, in the second video of dancing, a scene in the dark is shown with the most outrageous music as the sisters dance while seated and move their upper torsos like is done in a discotec.

Tonolo closes by refuting Don Minutella’s public question, “Where is the scandal?” in all of this: by citing the writings of St. John Vianney, who says, when people dance, they leave their guardian angels at the door of the dance hall.

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In my lifetime as a religious, I have never even heard of religious dancing together, except in some convents of sodomites. Nor is it at all consonant with our consecration to the Lord that secular music of any kind be played in our monasteries and convents, let alone disco music. Such is a sacrilege against these holy places and against those consecrated to the Lord, whose minds, recollection and bodies should be given the continual opportunity of recollection and religious observance.

Recreation for us religious does not mean secular things such as dancing or drinking, like godless folk, but rather that we have friendly conversations, tell innocent jokes, retell stories of saints, and sing beautiful religious chants. Those who need other recreation after their profession have doubtful vocations, since the call from the Lord turns the hearts of true vocations away from all the things of this world. A religious should not even dance by herself or himself in private, since such movement rouses the flow of blood, which is always a near occasion of temptations against purity. Even in public places, where such music is played, a true religious disdains having to listen to such junk and filth, and leaves when it passes the boundaries of all modesty.

To engage habitually and regularly in such behavior in a community of consecrated women religious, with their male founder present, is thus, in my judgement, worthy of all reproof.

It is now worthy of being noted, that in November of last year, when Radio Rosa Mistica interviewed Don Minutella with “hard” questions, on the question whether he had any sexual relations with the women in the religious community he founded, he spoke at great length without saying yes or no. See that video here.