Father Alberto Ángel Zanchetta was Secretary and General Chancellor of Ordinariato Castrense (Military Bishopric) of Argentina.[1]
Zanchetta served as a chaplain at the Navy Sub-Officers School of the Mechanics, or ESMA, which oversaw the torture and disappearance of 5,000 people during the Dirty War in Argentina.[2] According to naval officer Adolfo Scilingo (the first Latin American military officer convicted for his participation in Operation Condor), Zanchetta consoled the officers who were stricken with anguish from tasks they were asked to fulfill, from routine torture and executions to participation in death flights, in which prisoners were drugged, stripped naked and pushed to their deaths from helicopters.