“Whoever wants economic reparation will have it.” The spokesman for the Episcopal Conference, César García Magán, has been emphatic in his responses to the press conference following the Plenary Assembly of the Spanish Episcopate, a conclave that was held the same week in which the victims of abuse gave their child protection awards, and in which the Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, presented his anti-pedophilia report before the plenary session of Congress.
In it Gabilondo report It is proposed to create a reparation fund for victims of sexual abuse in religious environments, paid for by the Church and under state supervision, a measure that has the endorsement of practically the entire Chamber (with the exception of VOX). García Magán was asked about this fund on two occasions, but he avoided answering clearly. The spokesperson did stick out his chest to show a double guarantee of collection (first, through the institutions where the abuses occurred –dioceses or congregations–, and, if this fails, via the Episcopal Conference or the Spanish Conference of Religious). Also to point out the steps taken by other instances.
“It is evident that the issue of child abuse is a social problem,” explained Magán, who also stressed that “we must all make a commitment to fight against this scourge.” “The Church has made a path, perhaps we have arrived late, but we have made a path that others have not started. “We are willing to contribute our experience,” he stressed.
Regarding the possibility that, finally, the victims can be received by the Plenary Assembly, Magán has avoided answering, pointing out that “on the issue of the victims we want to be tremendously delicate” and “we are never going to say if we have received them. That’s what they say.” Yes, he has pointed out that there are victims in the Reparation Advisory Commission, something that, to say the least, is inaccurate: although a person who has been a victim is in that body, he does not do so on behalf of them, but rather of an association that works with they.
The bishops also began to evaluate the contents of the presentation of the next Federal Congress of the PSOE, in which, among other points, the repeal of the Educational Agreement with the Holy See is advocated. At this point, the EEC spokesperson regretted that the socialists “bring out the scarecrow of the denunciation of the 1979 Agreements”, recalling that “these are international agreements” that cannot be broken “unilaterally”.
The auxiliary bishop of Toledo, on the other hand, was in favor of another of the proposals: the opening of the for NGOs – to other realities, such as “scientific and medical research,” “the fight against climate change,” or “helping those most in need in Spain.”
“It’s very nice. It is an exercise in democratic taxation to ask citizens if they want a percentage of taxes to go to one reality or another,” Magán stressed. “I think it is good, since the Church undergoes this exercise every year. “It is a real poll, not a projection of a poll.”
Finally, the CEE spokesperson endorsed President Argüello’s ‘slap on the wrist’ to the political class during his opening speech, a speech “to reread and meditate on,” in which the leader of the bishops “makes a call to the moral height of society.” “We must vindicate the nobility of the art of politics,” Magán concluded.
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