SPAIN
El Pais
November 12, 2018
By Oriol Guell
Manuel Vilar Herrero recounts the assaults he suffered as a child at the hands of a priest who was “worshiped” by his mother and father. The following testimony is one of several making up an EL PAÍS series exposing decades of offenses by the clergy
Artana in the province of Castellón is a deeply religious parish of 2,000 people, but for years it has been hiding a dark secret, one that Manuel Vilar Herrero decided to expose. “I was victimized by the priest,” says Manuel, 50, referring to Antonio Gil Gargallo. “It started with fondling and kisses on the neck. Then he went on to touch my behind and my genitals. You could see him getting excited. He would end up rubbing himself against me, fully dressed, until he came in small convulsions.”
The abuses began in 1982 when Manuel was 14. “We had finished EGB [primary school] and we had to leave the village for BUP [secondary school] in Nules. At that time, the priest chose a number of us to come to his home to speak about morality. They were informal meetings and we would watch a film, and we could smoke and drink a bit of alcohol. It was at these meetings that the abuse started,” he says.
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