MADRID. Many knew, no one spoke. A blanket of “unjust silence” has shrouded the problem of sexual abuse within the Spanish Church for decades. But now, for the first time, the dimensions of the phenomenon have been highlighted by a national public institution: an estimate that speaks of over 400,000 possible victims of cases of pedophilia or harassment by priests, religious people or other people encountered in related fields, such as teachers or catechists. No other country has so far ever denounced such a stark reality in terms of numbers and proportions.
The photograph presented in Spain, which follows those taken in other countries including France, the United States, Germany and Australia, is the result of 15 months of work by an independent commission: an investigation launched by mandate of Parliament and led by the Ombudsman, figure responsible for monitoring compliance with citizens’ fundamental rights. The field work led to the collection of direct testimonies from 334 victims and indirect testimonies from another 153 people. Stories referring to episodes that occurred, mainly, between 1970 and 2020, and then also integrated by the dozens of cases brought to light by the newspaper El País, which has been investigating pedophilia in the Iberian Church since 2018, and the approximately 700 reported by the Spanish Episcopal Conference ( EEC). “These are testimonies that reveal a devastating impact of sexual abuse in the lives of these people,” explained the Ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo yesterday. “Often these are elderly people who have not been able to overcome terrible pain,” he added, then stating that “many people are undergoing psychological treatment, but there are also people who have committed suicide.”
The commission’s final report includes a survey, carried out by the company Gad3 based on 8,013 interviews. And it is precisely from there that some revealing data emerge: over 1.1% of adults resident in Spain declare having been victims of sexual abuse in contexts linked to the Church (including environments such as parishes, seminaries or schools), and 0.6 % of having suffered them specifically from priests or other religious people. A projection based on these percentages is obtained starting from the total adult population of Spain (around 39 million people): we would therefore be talking about, respectively, around 440,000 and 230,000 victims. Although perhaps an even more chilling figure, which came to light at the same time, concerns the phenomenon of pedophilia in more general terms: in fact, 11.7% of Spaniards declare having suffered some type of sexual abuse before turning 18 .
For Gabilondo, the work carried out allows us to begin to “give an answer” to “situations of suffering and loneliness” which have affected thousands of people. A wall of “denial, frustration, pressure and even attribution of blame” towards the victims often erected by the Church itself. «The collaboration of the bishops was uneven – he stated – some responded and tried to open some archives, but not all did so. There are those who even reproached us.” In this regard, the opinion of Julio Núñez, one of the journalists who authored the investigation carried out by El País, is clear. “What has been highlighted today clashes head-on with what has always been the official discourse of the Church in Spain, namely that the abuses here were only isolated cases,” he told LA STAMPA.
The Ombudsman also underlined the lack of responses from the public authorities, calling for “compensation” measures on the part of the State, such as the establishment of a public fund to draw on in this sense, created with contributions from the Church. Proposals have already become the subject of debate, while a comment also came from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. «From today we are a better country – he said – and we must recognize this to the victims, committing ourselves as public institutions to giving them an answer». The EEC, meanwhile, plans to analyze the report just revealed next Monday, in an extraordinary meeting.
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