Barcelona, Spain – Spanish bishops on Tuesday approved a plan to compensate victims of sexual abuse within the Church whose abusers have died or whose possible crimes have been outlawed, a move that both the government and victims’ associations said lacked guarantees.
The Spanish Bishops’ Conference (CEE) did not offer an estimate of how many victims it could help. But last year it said it had found evidence of 728 sexual abusers among the clergy since 1945 as part of its first public report after years of rejecting a comprehensive method for investigating sexual abuse.
Seventy-five percent of the cases occurred before 1990 and more than 60 percent of the abusers were dead, the conference said.
Last year, a survey by the Spanish public defender’s office indicated that the total number of victims, including minors, could be much higher.
The president of the EEC, Luis Argüello, said at a press conference in Madrid on Tuesday that the work “has not started today nor is it finished today, but today is an important day.”
Most of the cases, he said, occurred “before the 1990s. Therefore, these cases have legal avenues closed due to the statute of limitations of civil and criminal law in our society.”
The decision by the Episcopal Conference comes after the Spanish government approved a plan last year to force the Church to financially compensate victims of abuse.
The Church’s plan includes material reparation for victims, which may include financial compensation and payments for medical or therapeutic services. The Church also promised “economic, spiritual and psychological” compensation for victims.
It also includes the Church’s commitment to find the truth about every case of abuse, even in cases where the alleged abuser has already died.
“There is always legal redress, but for those cases that have already been prescribed under civil law, under canon law, and which cannot be reopened because of the time that has passed, or because the perpetrator has also died, we understand that the Church has a moral duty,” said Jesús Díaz Sariego, president of the Conference of Religious Orders of Spain, which supports the plan of the Episcopal Conference.
Each case will be handled by a newly created board of experts who will advise each diocese on how to best serve each victim.
The board will be made up of 10 people: four medical experts, four experts in the penal code, a representative of the Episcopal Conference and one from the Conference of Religious Orders. The board will also be able to call upon a representative of the victims’ association to work with it, the CEE said.
For cases of abuse that can be prosecuted legally, the Church said it also has offices to assist such victims.
Although Argüello said that the Church listened to the recommendations of the public defender, victims’ associations and the Spanish government, he said that the plan is insufficient.
Juan Cuatrecases, spokesman for a victims’ association, told Spanish National Radio that he did not accept the plan, explaining that the plan had no official oversight.
A day before the plan was to be unveiled, the government issued a statement saying it rejected what it called a unilateral and ineffective attempt at compensation.
“The government will not under any circumstances accept a unilateral system such as the one proposed, which has not been communicated to the Executive at any time. The Church’s plan does not involve the participation of the victims, it is not obligatory for the dioceses and its resolutions are not binding, so reparation is not guaranteed at any time,” the statement says.
Argüello said the 67 bishops who attended the extraordinary meeting in Madrid approved the plan, with only one abstention, in one of three approved documents.
Only a handful of countries have had government or parliamentary inquiries into sexual abuse by members of the clergy, although some independent groups have conducted their own investigations.
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