MADRID (SPAIN)
El País
September 17, 2018
By José Antonio Hernández
The man who was contacted by the pope after he wrote to him about the sexual assaults he suffered at the hands of Catholic priests breaks his silence in an interview with El País
The former altar boy and catechist from Granada who was phoned by an apologetic Pope Francis in 2014 in response to a letter he wrote to the Vatican reporting sexual abuse, has decided to break his silence. He has spent years hiding from the press and when he welcomes El País into his office in Pamplona, it is on condition he is not photographed and can remain anonymous, using the name Daniel for the purposes of this article.
“I don’t want to be pointed at in the street,” he says. A university professor, Daniel is 28, married and a member of the Catholic organization, Opus Dei. “I went through a lot and so did my family,” he says. “I ended up with the shakes and anxiety attacks. I decided to speak out about it because I don’t want anyone else to go through the same thing.”
Daniel feels pained and saddened by the handling of his case, both by the judiciary and the Catholic Church. “Hurt because some who abused me have gone back to their parishes, and who knows if they will go back to what they were doing,” he says.
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