The Spanish Episcopal Conference presented this Thursday the testimonies of 927 victims who came to its offices to report cases of pedophilia. Only nine of the 202 Spanish dioceses, which were not specified, have not received any complaint. But far from seeing the bottle half full, the Spanish bishops harshly criticized those who took advantage of their condition to abuse minors. “What went wrong?” they said.
The ecclesial environment must be a safe environment, especially for children, and it has not been for these 927 people, many of whom accuse the same religious. So far, accusations have been collected against 728, most of them already deceased. If their crimes have prescribed for ordinary justice, they have not done so for canonical justice, the bishops stressed. The two oldest cases date back to the mid-1940s.
The day of this Thursday was double in the Episcopal Conference. On the one hand, the Instruction against sexual abuse was presented, which can be read here. The document has a revealing subtitle: Special reference to the cases of minors, who usually have imperfect use of reason and those to whom the law recognizes equal protection. But a second text was also presented, the report To give light.
The first document is an action protocol, which apologizes and says it has learned “from the bitter lessons of the past.” The second includes the complaints of those who suffered these crimes in their own flesh, regardless of when they were registered. That does not matter “because the condition of victim never prescribes: a testimony is always relevant, even if it is about acts committed a long time ago by someone already deceased.”
Until now, many religious have criticized the focus on the Church because sexual abuse occurs in many more areas, such as academics or healthcare. However, this strategy of throwing balls out has not been used by the Episcopal Conference, which recognized that the number of 728 religious may seem small compared to the almost 25,000 that there are today, “but it is not.”
The auxiliary bishop of Barcelona put into practice this Monday the norms that the Spanish Episcopal Conference has adopted. He did so when he met with a victim of the Jesuit case, to whom he apologized and praised for denouncing the facts. The instruction of the bishops to combat abuses, and particularly pedophilia, insists on this point: the obligation to report and collaborate with the Prosecutor’s Office.
That bishops, priests, religious and the lay staff of pastoral institutions admit that they have to comply with the law may seem inconsequential, but it is important for the victims who accuse the Church of having covered up and transferred the perpetrators in the past. crimes, as the witnesses who have filed until now for the commission on pedophilia of the Parliament of Catalonia maintain.
The guide against abuses is complemented by the report To give light, to which the latest will be added the Ombudsman and the audit of the Cremades law firm
The diocesan offices and religious congregations authorized to collect complaints from victims have received a total of 927 people. Several accuse the same religious, which explains why there are 728 perpetrators. This is the robot portrait of the accused: almost all of them, except for five women, are men; most of the victims (82.7%) are also male.
52% of those denounced are clergymen; there are also 208 non-ordained religious and 92 lay people. 75% of the abuses are from before 1990. The “most significant†decades are the sixties, seventies and eighties. Most of the perpetrators, 63%, have already died. The school environment registered the majority of the attacks (47%), followed by the parish environment, and seminaries, boarding schools, choirs, pilgrimages and camping.
The Episcopal Conference has used very harsh words in presenting these data. José Gabriel Vera said: “The condition of a victim never prescribes. It is important that they know that we want to repair them because we recognize the damage caused. Sexual abuse hurts us and knowing the truth is essential because without truth there is no Churchâ€. You have to know “what went wrong”, stressed this spokesman.
“We have to know what went wrong in the selection of priests, in their formation and in their accompaniment so that people who chose the pastoral path ended up committing sexual abuse of minors.” The victim, he added, “is hallowed ground. No one can question her words or question her accusations. We are the first to be interested in finding out the truth and putting in the means so that something like this does not happen again.”
The bishops recognized that the conclusions they have presented should not be seen as a still photo, but as a video, because the files have not been closed and more complaints can still be collected. The testimonies against 728 religious of 927 victims have already been registered, but behind each of these complaints “there is a tragedy.” A single case, concluded José Gabriel Vera, “would already be serious enough.”
This representative of the bishops downplayed the fact that the majority of victims and executioners are men and recalled that the protagonists of sexual crimes are mostly men and are recorded in “masculine spheres.” He also praised the courage of the victims for daring to step forward and report very painful events that many would rather not have to remember.
“There is a place in the Church for victims (…) a place that exists because we recognize the damage caused and because we want to help them in their reception, accompaniment, healing and reparation.” A single case, the bishops’ spokesmen insisted again at the end of the presentation of the two reports, is “a tragedy for the victim, for her entourage and for the entire Church.”
