The Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) has commissioned the Cremades & Calvo Sotelo law firm to carry out an independent audit of the allegations of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. As detailed by the EEC this Monday in a statement, the professional office will open an “independent channel” to receive complaints and will review the legal procedures “aimed at punishing criminal practices”, in addition to offering its collaboration to the authorities to help clarify the facts and establish a prevention system “that satisfies the social demands in this regard”.
The president of the Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Juan José Omella, and the president of the law firm Cremades & Calvo Sotelo, Javier Cremades, will appear before the press on Tuesday to explain the details of this investigation. Contacted by this newspaper to expand the information on this announcement, the EEC has responded that it will wait for said announcement to give more information.
This independent audit comes at a time of tension for the Spanish Catholic Church. Sexual abuse committed by religious is one of the central issues of the political debate, after the Vatican announced the investigation into 251 unpublished cases of pederasty in the Church contributed by EL PAÍS. This initiative of the Holy See has activated several movements to respond to the problem. Thus, there will be an investigation from the political power, but the formula is still not clear: Moncloa is betting that it be led by the Ombudsman, while United We Can prefer an investigation commission in the Congress of Deputies, a proposal that they presented together to ERC and EH Bildu and which was admitted for processing at the beginning of February. The Socialists have assessed “positively” the audit announced by the EEC, reports Europa Press, while the purple group considers it “insufficient”.
In addition, the State Attorney General’s Office notified last week that there are 68 open procedures for sexual abuse in religious institutions. The figure corresponds to the active cases in 2022, which does not represent all the crimes, since it does not include the convictions of the past and a part of them do not reach civil justice, but are instructed in ecclesiastical processes. So far, at least 611 cases and 1,246 victims have come to light, according to the accounts kept by this newspaper, the only one in Spain in the absence of official or Church data.
The bishops remain unclear as to whether they will collaborate with that official investigation. In addition, the Episcopal Conference described as a “Sadducean trap” the possibility that it be promoted from the lower house and has not expressed itself on the option of being led by the institution led by Ángel Gabilondo. “The official investigation must continue its course. The Church should not have the privilege of investigating itself or choosing the model with which it is done. The State has the obligation to supervise that all the institutions that work with children are safe places”, says Miguel Ángel Hurtado, a victim of abuse in the Montserrat monastery who has gathered 70,000 signatures demanding that pederasty be investigated.
“chess move”
Fernando García Salmones, a member of the Stolen Childhood association and also a victim of pederasty in the Church, believes that this announcement anticipates that the Church will not collaborate with the official investigation. “So they can say that they have already created this commission, which is independent. But I think it’s a chess move so that other commissions don’t get ahead”, criticizes García Salmones. “The message is that they are not going to collaborate, and without them [la investigación] It can not be done. It is a way of saying that they are doing something and that they have taken a step before the faithful who have to have a clear conscience, ”he adds.
Hurtado, for his part, believes that the law firm’s investigation will only be positive if it “gets to the bottom of the matter.” “The credibility of Cremades & Calvo Sotelo is at stake. If the objective is not to clarify the truth, but to collaborate in whitewashing the image, the reputational damage will be significant”, indicates Hurtado. García Salmones also speaks of “image laundering”. He believes it is “outrageous” to entrust this task to a law firm. “It is time to put people with proven experience in these issues at the head of an external audit, who truly meet the required parameters of independence and transparency and, of course, the clear and loud voice of the victims,” adds Stolen Childhood in a statement. . Manuel Barbero, father of a victim and founder of the Mans Petites association, questions the usefulness of an audit “commissioned by themselves”, referring to the Church.
german lawyers
In Hurtado’s opinion, the work entrusted to Cremades & Calvo Sotelo should be similar to that carried out by the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW), which carried out the same task in Munich. “It is a very good example. A private firm investigated 50 years of abuse, doing an excellent job. They did not shake their hands even to accuse Benedict XVI of a cover-up”. This independent report, published at the beginning of this year, estimated that there were 497 victims of sexual abuse committed by 235 religious between 1945 and 2019. In general, the German episcopal conference launched an investigation in 2014 into past cases, which culminated in the publication of a report in 2018 which estimated 3,677 victims of sexual abuse committed by 1,670 religious. The document specified that half of them were at most 13 years old. In this case, the German Church commissioned the study to an interdisciplinary team made up of criminologists, gerontologists and psychologists.
In recent days, several representatives of the Spanish ecclesiastical hierarchy have positively valued the investigation of pederasty in the institution. The most weighty voice that has spoken in favor is that of Cardinal Carlos Osoro, vice president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference. “That there are no complaints does not mean that there are no cases. Cases of the past are cases of the present. In a line similar to that of Osoro, other prelates have expressed themselves, such as Burgos or Zamora, in favor of the creation of parliamentary or independent commissions to investigate what happened. The Bishop of the Canary Islands believes that “all cases of pederasty must be investigated” and that the victims must be “helped and repaired”. “The proposal for a parliamentary commission on abuses in the Church, whether carried out directly in Congress or through the Ombudsman, on the part of the Church, I have to tell you that it is well received,” the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela.
If you know of any case of sexual abuse that has not come to light, write to us with your complaint at [email protected]
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