The parish priest of the church of Caldes d’Estrac (Maresme), Josep Vendrell, who died in 2004, who has recently come to light for some twenty accusations of sexual abuse against minors in the municipality of Maresme and in Barcelona, ??has already generated controversy in 1975 when the relative of one of the victims, “a faithful Catholic” expressed that, after not having believed the rumors, through the testimony of his own son, he learned of the episodes of sexual abuse, for which reason asked that he be removed from the parish.
As recognized by the Archbishopric of Barcelona, ??the then head of the diocese, Cardinal Jubany, received in 1975 several chronicles “undated or signed” that recounted the abuses of the parish priest against minors in the parish. One of them from a father who demanded to move the parish priest to “where there are no children” and “for charity” to put himself in “the hands of a doctor.”
In that same year, the parish priest himself, in a parish sheet, acknowledged that he had asked the Cardinal-Archbishop to be relieved of his position as he was the object of “a campaign that affected his fame among the parishioners” which had caused “tensions within the within the Christian community. The documentation compiled by the Archbishopric includes two reports from the rector of a nearby parish, in relation to the case, in which he concludes that the situation is unsustainable due to the confrontation between Mosen Vendrell and the City Council, due to the attitude of the rector and the manifestation of some young man who reported that the priest “asked them for an immoral sexual practice”.
The archbishopric also had communications of support for the rector of the parish, from the nuns who managed the parish church, also signed by a representative of the association of parents of students, in which they defended the priest and considered that he was being slandered. Despite all this, the documentation, according to the ecclesiastical body, “does not include any direct complaint from the victims” and there is no further documented information from years after the events. Nor is there any information about the cause of his death, although it is speculated that it was a suicide.
With this, the archdiocese admits having been aware of the facts, but there is no record that it would have reacted in this regard. From the Catholic Church they state that his will is to contact the victims to find out “first-hand” everything that happened to clarify the facts and “take the appropriate measures” despite the fact that the pedophile priest maintained his religious activity for thirty years.
