MADRID
EL PAÍS in English
November 1, 2018
By Julio Núñez
For many years, V. C. kept quiet about the assaults she suffered at the hands of a priest in Villaviciosa, Asturias. Her testimony is one of several making up an EL PAÍS series exposing decades of offenses by the clergy
For many years, V. C., 36, kept quiet about the abuse she suffered at the hands of the local priest between the ages of six and 13 in Villaviciosa, in the northern Spanish region of Asturias. Then, in 2015, she finally felt ready to report the priest and sent a handwritten letter to the archbishop of Oviedo, Jesús Sanz Montes, in which she described what had happened and the devastating effect it had on her.
When she met the archbishop in person, he held her letter in one hand and told her that nothing could be done. “He said it was my word against his, that they had sent [her assailant] away some years earlier due to other problems, and that he was under observation,” she says.
I WAS ALREADY HAVING ANXIETY ATTACKS WHEN I WAS 14
The archbishop did not encourage her to file a legal complaint, as established by the Spanish Episcopal Conference’s abuse protocol since 2010. Nor did he launch ecclesiastical proceedings against the priest in question.
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