The investigation opened in the Spanish Church as a result of the report on pederasty, with 251 unpublished cases, which this newspaper delivered to the Pope and the president of the Episcopal Conference (CEE), has triggered a new wave of denunciations. The email opened by EL PAÍS in October 2018 to receive complaints of abuse of minors in the Church has registered since December 19, when the news of the dossier was published, more than 150 messages that indicate more unknown cases from the past. This newspaper is already attending to them and interviewing the senders to verify and document their accusations.
The complaints that come to light do not stop increasing as events accelerate in the last month and a half. After the release of the report, Congress has begun the procedures for the creation of an investigation commission, although the parties are also debating the possibility of a national and independent commission of experts that will then send a report to Parliament, as Ireland has done, Belgium or Australia. For its part, the State Attorney General’s Office has demanded that the provincial prosecutor’s offices inform it of the complaints they are processing at this time. It is a first step, but a very limited one, because the vast majority of known cases have prescribed and are not reported. It only allows knowing what is happening now, but nothing of the past. At the moment the Prosecutor’s Office does not clarify if it will request, for example, the convictions of these cases from the last 50 years, unknown information that would contribute to understanding the scope of the scandal.
The new complaints received by this newspaper in the last month and a half bring the total number of messages received by EL PAÍS to more than 700 in three years. Of these, more than a hundred cases have been published and another 251 were included in the report delivered to the Vatican. The rest, half of those collected so far, are still being investigated with the aim of being released soon.
EL PAÍS also launched a database in April 2021 with an accounting of cases of pederasty in the Church, which is the only existing reference in Spain, in the absence of official data or data from the ecclesiastical authorities. It records all the cases published in this newspaper, plus those that have appeared in other media, those recognized by the Church and those resulting from court rulings. The figures at this time amount to 611 cases – each case is a defendant – and 1,246 victims.
These figures contrast with the total opacity of the Church, which refuses to review its past, create an independent investigation commission, as the Church of France or Germany has done, and even to reveal the number of cases it knows about. The EEC only states that there are very few, although it admits that it does not know how many there are either. This apparent ignorance is based on the fact that each diocese knows its own, but the EEC claims not to have the power to claim that information and add them.
In reality, to give the only figure they have admitted so far, the Spanish bishops say they had to ask the Vatican for it. Since 2001, the bishops have been obliged to communicate to the Holy See the complaints they receive, a control measure imposed at the time to avoid the concealment of cases at the local level. In this way, the EEC requested from Rome the data of those received from Spain and announced it last April, five days after EL PAÍS made its accounting public. They recognized only 220 internal complaints against priests since 2001, although they could refer to events from previous years. Of these, 144 were against diocesan priests (43 of them were then still under investigation in open files) and 76, against religious orders (with 26 still open at that time). The EEC did not give further details.
lack of transparency
The truth is that very few dioceses have opted for transparency and have revealed the number of cases in their files. EL PAÍS first asked about it in October 2018, when it began its investigation, and only 18 of the 70 dioceses answered, and the majority to say that they were not aware of any episode. Only four admitted a case: Oviedo, Plasencia, Guadix and Vic. EL PAÍS did another consultation round a year ago, in February 2021, and there was a slight advance: 32 of the 70 dioceses agreed to report the number of complaints received, although most do not record any.
The EEC alleges that in 2021 it opened victim assistance offices in all dioceses, although it was by order of the Pope, but it has never given details of its work either. It only ensures that they have received “very few” cases. In any case, they are unknown entities and that in most cases do not even appear in the digital pages of the bishoprics.
The Spanish Church has reluctantly opened the investigation of the 251 cases in the EL PAÍS report, because its own regulations oblige it to do so, but the EEC has disregarded the process. The investigation is not centralized, but each of the 31 dioceses and 31 orders affected investigates itself, with its own criteria and with little transparency. In fact, it is this newspaper that must manage the contact of all these entities with the victims and witnesses of the dossier, a total of 281 people, who wish to contribute their testimony. The EEC has not wanted to coordinate these procedures. Most of the religious orders, which accumulate 77% of the cases in the report, have asked this newspaper to contact the complainants. On the contrary, most of the bishops involved are ignoring the victims. At this time, almost two months after the delivery of the study to the CEE, only 11 of the 31 dioceses affected have addressed this newspaper to request communication with the people who point out abuses in the past. The last two to do so have been Toledo and Burgos.
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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