The auxiliary bishop of Barcelona, ​​David AbadÃas, met this Monday with one of the victims of the abuses of the Jesuïtes Casp school in Barcelona, ​​to whom he asked for forgiveness on behalf of the Church of Barcelona and the Spanish Episcopal Conference. The meeting with V., a 71-year-old doctor, who denounced in these same pages the abuses he suffered by three religious from this center, lasted about an hour.
V., who is married, went to the library on the ground floor of the Archbishopric with his partner. Bishop AbadÃas, who is also a doctor in Church history, praised his public denunciation of the events. “He has done what he had to do,†he told her and encouraged others to follow his example. He also apologized for the suffering he has experienced with words that his interlocutor considers “empathetic, cordial and open to dialogue.”
The Archdiocese’s reaction coincides with the dissemination of a new complaint against the Jesuit Francesc Peris, whom a former student has accused of sexual abuse before the Mossos d’Esquadra de Gavà police station. The complaint will not have any criminal repercussions, since the facts are already prescribed, but it confirms the damage that religious unworthy of his condition did to some of his students and to the institution.
V. made a first public complaint in 2014. He received no response from the Church or the Society of Jesus, despite the fact that his name is well known in this religious congregation (a maternal uncle was a respected Jesuit stationed in Bolivia ). On the 25th, La Vanguardia once again echoed his case. That same day, V. contacted the Archdiocese again. The reaction this time was immediate.
Ecclesiastical sources maintain reservations about the meeting, but V. and his partner left the meeting very satisfied, although the former says he is still “very annoyed with the Jesuits and still does not understand their silence.” Bishop AbadÃas himself asked for his permission, and obtained it, to act as an intermediary before the congregation and achieve a rapprochement. “Time will tell how all this ends,” says this victim of child abuse.
V. deduced from the interview that the Cremades law firm
The auxiliary bishop of Barcelona discussed this document with his guests at the library and explained that the perpetrators of such crimes face, in addition to ordinary justice, ecclesiastical justice, which can withdraw their honors, prevent them from exercising their ministry and even suspend a divinis, that is, “prohibit the exercise of any act of power of the orders that they obtained by holy orders or by privilege.”
One of the most emotional moments of the meeting occurred when V. took out his photo album and showed the portrait of a boy in his first communion, “the spitting image of innocenceâ€. It was him. The abuses, he told the bishop, “began a few months after this photograph.” The meeting began at 5:30 p.m. and ended almost an hour later. V. went out into the street liberated from a weight, with the feeling of unsettled discomfort…
That feeling of liberation is the same one that E., 59, began to experience when she went to the Mossos d’Esquadra. He has made himself available to “all the media that consider it appropriate, showing his face, with names and surnames. No initials, no distorted voices. A paradigm shift is necessary and we are not the victims who have to hide. I’m not afraid anymore”.
However, for consistency with the rest of the complainants and until his first public appearance with light and stenographers, La Vanguardia has preferred to continue referring to him for the moment with only one initial. Not even E. himself imagines to what extent his case represents so many people. Until recently, he had not dared to denounce the abuse he suffered in his childhood because he thought that there was no one else in his situation.
He was afraid that they would not believe him, but he was encouraged to break his silence when he saw the first news about Francec Peris and the letter that 234 former students made public to demand transparency from the school. E. He studied at the Jesuïtes Casp between 1970 and 1982. He was surprised by Francesc Peris’s manner and clothing, as other former students have pointed out. He had a reputation for being progressive and did not dress with the rigor of other Jesuits.
His true character, according to his complaint to the Mossos, was reflected in the Jesuit camp house in the Girona town of Viladrau. In the swimming pool, in the tutorials, in the communal dormitory, where E. always chose the bunk furthest from the door to avoid the nocturnal visits of the religious. It is all so sad and so crude that it is better to reread the complaint, which appears at the beginning of this chronicle.
It is very common for victims of sexual abuse (much more if they are minors) to feel blocked before their aggressors. And also that they have feelings of guilt, of shame, as if the culprits were themselves (“Do you see what you make me do?â€, the de la Salle brother who abused him when he was a child told Alejandro Palomas). That explains why people like E. are afraid to talk to their parents.
E. failed many subjects and maintains that the grades often depended on whether or not he complied with the will of Francesc Peris. Despite his poor school record, he graduated from university and today is a recognized professional, although he has been going to “psychotherapy for 18 years.” He has now taken another step in his rehabilitation. He has denounced the facts and knows that he is not the only one, that he is not alone. “I’m not afraid anymore,” he repeats.
