“All institutions make mistakes. And many more successes, most of them”, said this Wednesday the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, during a campaign rally in Valladolid together with the PP candidate for the presidency of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco . “They are talking about that questioning of the Church. I respect it, we are not going to go into the background because that is what they want, ”she explained. Ayuso was referring to the new source of hope for victims of sexual abuse in the Church: the proposal of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to promote an investigation of pederasty in the Spanish clergy headed by the Ombudsman, advanced on Sunday by EL PAÍS and registered in Congress on Monday.
“But who is talking about the heritage that the Church leaves us? Who questions the heritage left to us by our churches, our convents, our monasteries…?” asked the president of the Community of Madrid, referring to the “many traditions” left by the Catholic institution. “How much does charity, solidarity, values and consolation contribute to Spain? How much does that cost? That is not counted ”, Ayuso protested during his intervention from Valladolid. “There is nothing more dangerous than half-truths”, she concluded. Ayuso has taken advantage of the assembly to support the Spanish Church, which is currently involved in an unprecedented pederasty scandal that has reached Congress, the Prosecutor’s Office and La Moncloa.
The initiative of the PSOE, which proposes that the Ombudsman has the support of an “independent advisory commission” made up of experts, representatives of public administrations, victims’ associations and the Church itself, is making its way among the majority of the parliamentary forces, but it has not penetrated among the popular or the extreme right. The proposal is supported by United We Can, ERC and EH Bildu. Also Canarian Coalition. And Ciudadanos assures that it will not oppose. At the same time, the PNV registered its own proposal on Monday, very similar to that of the Socialists, but with a nuance: the investigation must conclude with a report within a year, which will be presented to the Constitutional Commission of the Congress of the Deputies, where the evidence found is reflected, some conclusions are presented and, if applicable, those measures that are considered appropriate to be adopted are proposed.
The PP, for its part, maintains its position and considers “that the investigation of all abuses of minors should be considered, regardless of the cause”, as the president of the party, Pablo Casado, already announced on Sunday at a rally in Palencia. Vox is also opposed, whose spokesman in Congress, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, last week described the investigation proposal in the Chamber as an “aberration”. The PSOE now wants to negotiate with all the parties to get them to support its research model. The President of the Government has entrusted the former Vice President Carmen Calvo to publicly report on the progress of these negotiations, which are being handled by the Socialist Parliamentary Group.
Last Sunday Ayuso set social networks on fire with a tweet in which he criticized Sánchez’s proposal. “Sanchismo’s obsession with identifying the Church with evil, while whitewashing evil itself,” he wrote then. Some users responded with messages such as: “Ayuso says this while the Pope Emeritus apologizes” or “Are you saying that you think it’s wrong to investigate pedophiles?”
The events precipitated weeks after EL PAÍS delivered, last December, to Pope Francis and the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) a report with 251 unpublished cases of sexual abuse, committed by priests, religious and lay workers, since the 1940s to the present. The journalistic investigation began in October 2018, and the accounting of EL PAÍS is the only one in Spain, in the absence of official data or data from ecclesiastical institutions. It already adds up to more than 1,240 victims in more than 600 cases. It includes the stories of Fernando García, Ernesto Pérez, Leonor García, Antonio Carpallo, Juanjo Sendra, Emilio Boyer, Agustín Molleda, Antònia Pallach, or the writer Alejandro Palomas.
If you know of any case of sexual abuse that has not seen the light of day, write to us with your complaint at [email protected]
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