Pope Francis has called the entire Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) to meet in the Vatican on November 28. The decision, which has actually been communicated by the Dicastery for the Clergy, is completely extraordinary and, in principle, is to address the inspection carried out by two bishops sent from Rome to visit the seminaries of Spain, an also unusual investigation initiated a year ago by order of the Pope. However, the call comes a few days after the Ombudsman made public the conclusions of his investigation into the abuse of minors in the Spanish Catholic Church, which estimates that 1.13% of the population has suffered abuse in the childhood in a religious environment, a percentage that is equivalent to about 440,000 people.
The Spanish bishops, in addition, have to decide in the Plenary Assembly the week before (from the 20th to the 24th) on the future of the report that they themselves commissioned on the issue of abuse from the law firm Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo. In the Vatican, no one officially speaks out on the issue and sources close to the investigation of the abuses indicate that what happened in Spain in recent days has been followed with a certain distance, since the Holy See was immersed in the closing of the synod.
The reality, however, is that it is surprising that the entire Episcopal Conference, with almost 80 active bishops, is summoned to Rome. Especially if it is taken into account that the leadership of the prelates was already summoned in January 2022 for a visit ad limina, the trip that the episcopate of each country makes every five years to meet the Pope. The next one should not have been until 2027. The last time something similar happened was in 2018, when Francis convened the Chilean bishops and ended up causing the resignation of his entire leadership. Next year’s election of the new president of the Episcopal Conference is now also on the table.
The presence of the Pope is not confirmed at the meeting, although given the large nature of the event, it seems quite likely that the pontiff will participate in the meeting. The main reason should be to address the status of the 45 seminaries in which future priests of Spain are trained. The EEC itself explained it in the last point of the statement on the topics discussed in the Extraordinary Plenary Assembly that was held last Monday to discuss the conclusions of the Ombudsman on abuses.
Today Spain has 45 seminaries in which 974 seminarians will study in 2023: 725 less than a decade ago. The Uruguayans Milton Luis Tróccoli, bishop of Maldonado-Punta del Este-Minas, and Arturo Eduardo Fajardo, bishop of Salto, visited them between the months of February and March 2023 with the request of Pope Francis to analyze their condition. After the long audit, they prepared a comprehensive document with the lines of improvement and recommendations that they delivered to the prefect for the Clergy, the South Korean Lazzaro You Heung-Sik. According to the magazine New lifesources from the dicastery defined the results as “problematic.”
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