MADRID (SPAIN)
Barron's [New York NY]
October 26, 2023
By Diego Urdaneta, Agence France-Presse
Spain will on Friday learn the results of the country’s first independent probe into the abuse of minors within the Catholic Church, long accused by survivors of stonewalling and denial.
Unlike in other nations like France, Ireland and the United States, in Spain — a traditionally Catholic country that has become highly secular — clerical abuse allegations are only now gaining traction.
Spain’s parliament in March 2022 overwhelmingly approved the creation of an independent commission led by the country’s ombudsman to “shed light” on allegations of sexual abuse of “defenceless boys and girls” within the Catholic Church.
The commission’s final report is scheduled to be delivered to parliament at 11:30 am (0930 GMT) by Spain’s national ombudsman Angel Gabilondo, a former education minister.
Spain’s Catholic Church, which for years flatly refused to carry out its own probe, declined to take part in the independent investigation, although it did cooperate by providing documents on cases of sexual abuse that had been collected by dioceses.
But as political pressure mounted, it tasked a private law firm in February 2022 with an “audit” into past and present sexual abuse by clergy, teachers and others associated with the Church, which should be completed by the end of the year.
The Spanish Church said in June it had discovered 927 cases of child abuse through a complaints procedure launched in 2020.
But a probe by top-selling daily newspaper El Pais which began in 2018 has since uncovered 2,206 victims and 1,036 alleged abusers dating back to 1927.
By comparison, an independent commission in France concluded some 216,000 children — mostly boys — had been sexually abused by clergy since 1950.
In Ireland more than 14,500 people received compensation though a government scheme for those abused at juvenile facilities run by the Catholic Church.
Survivors of abuse in Spain welcomed the news that the commission would be presenting the results of its probe.
Jose Alfonso Ruiz, who says he was sexually assaulted by a friar in 1982 when he was just 13 in the northern city of Vitoria, told AFP the findings would be a “public acknowledgement” that cases of abuse existed.
For Juan Cuatrecasas, a founding member of the “Infancia Robada” (Stolen Childhood), victims’ association and the father of a youth who was abused by a teacher at a Catholic school in Bilbao, the report will serve as validation of the survivors’ ordeals.
“For years we have been totally ignored and minimised and this report should serve as a spark for public authorities to do their job,” he told AFP.
Other survivors, like Francisco Javier Mendez, who says he was abused by a priest in a seminary in the northern city of Leon in the late 1980s, are more cautious.
If the report is not accompanied by a law approved by parliament to offer aid to the survivors, then “it is useless,” because the pain caused by the clergy cannot be fixed only “with words,” he told AFP.
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The Barron’s news department was not involved in the creation of the content above. This story was produced by AFP. For more information go to AFP.com.
© Agence France-Presse