The Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) has approved the creation of an Arbitration Commission, provided for in the Comprehensive Reparation Plan for Victims of Abuse in the Church, to study complaints presented in the offices of dioceses that do not have a route in the judicial sphere, either because the statute of limitations has expired or because the aggressor has died.
This was announced this Thursday by the Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference, César García Magán, at the press conference following the meeting of the Permanent Commission of the EEC, which was held this week and during which the bishops studied the Reparation plan for victims of abuse within the Church.
In this context, the Arbitration Commission, whose composition will be determined at the Plenary Assembly in March, will have a national scope and will be made up of different profiles among which there will be “recognized experts with a plurality of origins”, from the legal, civil and canonical, to doctors and psychologists, as detailed by García Magán.
This Commission will study the complaints filed in the Minor Protection Offices of the different dioceses that for various reasons do not have a judicial process, either because the aggressor has died, or because the crime has expired. “In cases that have judicial proceedings, we abide by what the sentences say,” added the Secretary General of the EEC.
García Magán has advanced that a Commission of experts will also be created to carry out the assessment work for cases in which economic compensation is claimed.
It will be in the March Plenary when this Reparation Plan is expected to be approved and subsequently the economic reparations will be made effective based on the study carried out, case by case, by the Arbitration Commission as presented by the diocesan commissions.
In this sense, García Magán has recalled that firstly, the economic reparation corresponds to the aggressor and secondly, the ecclesiastical entity to which he belongs is subsidiarily responsible; that is, your diocese or institute of consecrated life.
However, the spokesperson for the bishops has warned that reducing the issue of reparation only to the economic is “a commodification of the victims”, when what many of them want is to have a meeting with the bishop and heal their wounds of another way.
The prelates have also had the opportunity to analyze the latest updated report of “Para dar Luz”, on abuses, after integrating the contributions and recommendations of the Ombudsman’s report and the audit prepared, at the request of the EEC, by the Cremades law firm
The total cost that this audit has entailed for the Church is 1,225,000 euros, as reported by García Magán, who has acknowledged that “it has not been cheap”, although he has defended the commission carried out by the EEC with the objective of ” seek the truth” just as the victims deserve.
“The assignment was agreed upon by the bishops, ratified in the Plenary and then there were circumstances and delays, but we do not take away the interest of the work that has been carried out with depth and professionalism,” he noted.
