More than 200,000 minors have suffered sexual abuse by Catholic religious in Spain since 1940, according to a first independent report released on Friday. that breaks the silence in a country where the victims were confronted for decades with the opacity of the Church.
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“There are people who have committed suicide (…), people who have never put their lives back together,” said the Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, at a press conference.who delivered the more than 700-page report, titled “A necessary response”, to the Spanish Congress, which had entrusted it to him in March 2022.
The report does not offer an exact figure, but it includes a survey carried out with a sample of 8,000 people, according to which 0.6% of the Spanish adult population (about 39 million people in total) claims to have suffered sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church when they were minors. .“There are people who have committed suicide (…), people who have never put their lives back together,” said the Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, at a press conference, who delivered the report of more than 700 pages, titled “A necessary response”, to the Spanish Congress, which had entrusted it to it in March 2022.
The figure increases to 1.13% of the adult population (equivalent to more than 400,000 victims) if the abuses committed by lay people in religious settings are included, Gabilondo specified.who coordinated the independent commission that worked for a year and a half.
Gabilondo, a former socialist Minister of Education, pointed out that there are cases that date back to the 1940s, but that the vast majority occurred between 1970 and 1990.
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An era that spans from the beginning of the Franco dictatorship (1939-75), which had the Church as one of its pillars, to a period with the democratic transition already well established.
Besides, The commission of experts interviewed 487 victims, who highlighted “the emotional problems” they suffered throughout their lives, Gabilondo said. “I will never be a normal person. I will never stop doing therapy or taking medication,” one victim, Teresa Conde, told AFP, for whom the report is a “light” that should lead civil authorities to guarantee ” “that at least this is not repeated.”
Now a 57-year-old philosophy professor, Conde was abused for years by a friar who was a close friend of her family. starting when he was 14 years old when he went to a religious school in Salamanca (northwest), in the early 1980s.
‘Concealment’ of abuses
Unlike France, Germany, Ireland, the United States or Australia, Spain, a country with a deep-rooted Catholic tradition, had never carried out an investigation into pedophilia in the clergy.
In France, 216,000 minor victims have been recorded since 1950, in Germany there have been 3,677 cases between 1946 and 2014, and in Ireland more than 14,500 people have received financial compensation.
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In the Spanish Catholic Church “for many years a certain will to deny abuse has predominated (…), to conceal or protect abusers,” denounced Gabilondo, who criticized the transfer of denounced religious to other parishes or countries.
Among his recommendationsthe report calls for “the creation of a state fund to pay compensation” to victims and ensure that they are provided with psychological care as long as necessary.
The Catholic Church, which for years flatly refused any exhaustive investigation, declined to participate in the commission, although it finally provided documents.
Consulted by AFP, The Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) indicated that it will take a position on Monday in an extraordinary assembly.
In the face of increasing political pressure, The Church announced its own audit in February 2022which a law firm plans to finish before the end of the year.
The Church claims to have implemented action protocols against abuse and installed “minor protection” offices in its dioceses.
A ‘little better’ country
“Today we are a slightly better country because a reality has been made known that everyone has known for many years, but about which no one talked”the president of the Spanish government, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, congratulated himself from Brussels.
The publication of the report was welcomed by many victims. “It is a serious report, which responds to the demands of the victims,” who had a “voice” in its preparation, Juan Cuatrecasas told AFP.founding member of the Stolen Childhood association.
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Father of a young man abused by a teacher at a Catholic school between 2008 and 2010 in the Basque city of Bilbao, Cuatrecasas He indicated that the report should not mark “an end” but rather “the beginning” of a process in which Congress legislates to provide reparations to the victims.
The “victims do not ask for alms, they ask that in a rule of law they be considered victims.” and that they have the right to all the resources and demands they request,” he highlighted.
AFP
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