Over 80 years, more than 200 thousand children in Spain were abused by clergy

Pedophile Crusade

Over 80 years, more than 200 thousand children in Spain were abused by clergy

Original of this material

© Forbes.ru10/27/2023, More than 200,000 children in Spain were abused by clergy

Olga Mamikonyan

Since 1940, more than 200,000 minors have been sexually abused by Roman Catholic clergy in Spain. This was reported by The Guardian with reference to data from the report of an independent commission.

As the publication notes, the commission’s report does not provide a specific number of victims, but indicates that a survey of more than 8,000 people showed that 0.6% of the adult population of Spain were subjected to sexualized violence by clergy in childhood. This percentage, the researchers note, corresponds to 200,000 Spaniards out of the country’s 39 million adult population.

Commenting on the results of the report at a press conference, Spain’s Commissioner for Human Rights Angel Gabilondo said that if we take into account not only representatives of the clergy, but also lay people who work in religious institutions, the proportion of those subjected to sexualized violence increases to 1.13% – more 400,000 people.

“Unfortunately, for many years there has been a prevailing desire within the religious community to deny violence, cover up abuse or protect abusers,” Gabilondo said. The Human Rights Ombudsman also proposed the creation of a special state fund to pay compensation to victims, since the church’s response to cases of child abuse was “insufficient.”

The Spanish Parliament approved the creation of an independent commission to “shed light on allegations of sexualized abuse of defenseless boys and girls” in the Catholic Church in March 2022. The initiator was the Commissioner for Human Rights, Angel Gabilondo, and the proposal was supported by a majority of votes. As The Guardian notes, Spain’s Catholic Church, which for years has categorically refused to conduct its own investigation into cases of sexualized abuse by clergy, did not take part in the independent investigation. At the same time, church representatives cooperated with the commission, providing documents on recorded cases of violence collected by different dioceses.

The Catholic Church in Spain covered up the harassers and, after complaints, transferred them to other parishes

Original of this material

© La VanguardiaSpain, 10/28/2023, Translation: InoSMI.RuMore than 400 thousand Spaniards were sexually abused by the church

Domingo Marchena (Domingo Marchena)

More than 440 thousand Spaniards were abused by clergy, writes La Vanguardia. For many years, the Catholic Church managed to hide the crimes being committed. And so it would have continued if not for a specially created commission, which summed up shocking statistics.

People’s Defender Ángel Gabilondo presented this Friday to Congress his report on sexual abuse and cases of pederasty in the Church. The report was prepared on his behalf 19 months ago. The more than 770-page document, which can be found here, says that 0.6% of Spain’s population (or more than 400,000 people) has been abused by clergy or priests, and criticizes the bishops’ “uneven level of cooperation.”

These 400,000, or more accurately 440,000 people, were identified through a survey of people over 18 years of age. It should be taken into account that there are more than eight million minors in Spain. Of those surveyed, 0.6% admitted that they had been subjected to violence by priests or church workers. But this figure almost doubles (1.13%) if we include cases of “religiously motivated” violence, including those committed by the laity.

Whatever the final figure, it is extremely high, admits Gabilondo. And all these people demand “restoration of justice, compensation, apologies, public admission of guilt,” which, in turn, demands greater transparency and the creation of a so-called compensation fund on the part of the church, “for which now there is nothing more harmful than silence on this question. Because the biggest scandal will be refusal to cooperate.” […]

The Episcopal Conference refused to participate in the work of the advisory commission created by Angel Gabilondo, although it promised to provide all the information requested. In fact, this cooperation is a commitment, but not everyone has fulfilled it. “Some bishops even criticized us and asked why we were getting involved in this.” Angel Gabilondo’s conclusions come more than a year and a half after receiving assignments from all parliamentary parties except Vox (Spain’s far-right national conservative political party).

During this time, the Church ordered an audit from the law firm Cremades, which plans to present its results in the near future. In March of this year, ahead of its own audit and that of Angel Gabilondo, the Church submitted a 2,000-page report. It collected testimonies from 927 victims who came to the church with allegations of pederasty and sexual abuse.

Gabilondo’s performance disappointed those who expected an exact number of casualties. He admitted that he had reached out to all dioceses and communities. “They gave us some figures, which totaled 1,430 victims. The public defender then turned to the Bishops’ Conference, which, based on the same sources, counted “400 fewer victims.”

“We won’t get far this way,” Gabilondo said, citing an investigation he commissioned that involved interviewing 8,000 people over 18 years of age. According to this study, 11.7% of respondents admitted to having been sexually assaulted before reaching adulthood. Of these, 3.36% experienced domestic violence. And 1.13% – “in the religious sphere.”

Of these 1.13%, 0.6% admitted that the rapist was “a church minister or priest.” When extrapolating “this indicative statistics for the Spanish population” (according to the People’s Defender himself), the result is 440 thousand people. “The question is very important,” said one participant. However, the numbers and percentages do not reflect either the real scale of the problem or the “suffering and loneliness of the victims.”

This vulnerability is exacerbated by “unfair silence.” Victims need to be “heard, cared for and supported.” A total of 487 people (and that’s not all!) contacted the people’s defense assistance departments. But the true scale of the problem will never be known. Eighty-four percent of applicants are male.

So why will they remain hidden from the general public? For several reasons. Due to the “inaccessibility of certain archives”, the “voluntary silence” of some people affected by violence, and also due to a sufficiently long period of time, as a result of which some of them have already passed away. For this reason, the report’s authors insist that payment of compensation cannot be delayed any longer. The report (“we are not judges or legislators”) does not say what needs to be done, but it gives advice and shows the way.

The consequences of the violence were “devastating” and there was an urgent need for a response from the Church, from which “exemplary behavior” should be expected. However, in many cases this response was “insufficient and sluggish.” Victims rarely received adequate assistance and were excluded from “canon law procedures.” The latest steps taken by the Bishops’ Conference are progress, “but not yet sufficient.”

The Public Defender was a church minister and teacher from 1966 to 1979 in two Sacred Heart schools: in Vitoria and Madrid. It so happens that during the same period that he was a teacher, charges of clerical pederasty were brought against other teachers at both schools, and he worked on the same teaching staff with the alleged sexual predators he is now investigating. This circumstance caused mistrust among the victims.

But the response from the institution he leads has been strong, criticizing the church’s “secrecy and indifference” towards people who have suffered so much harm and who have high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation and low self-esteem. At times, he said, they are repeatedly abused and made to feel guilty for what happened. But it’s not only that…

This has long been well known, but never before has such a representative institution as the People’s Defense spoken about it so clearly and decisively. “For many years, the Catholic Church covered up this behavior and covered it up by transferring the perpetrators to other churches and parishes. This has been a repeated evil practice in many ecclesiastical institutions.” Therefore, now, among other things, compensation is necessary for crimes for which the statute of limitations has already expired.

Currently, relations in the church hierarchy have changed, although some bishops even allowed themselves to “scold” the people’s defender (“although in reality we do not really allow ourselves to be scolded”), but these changes are not enough. And they are insufficient, as stated in the document, because they are aimed more at prevention than at “real compensation for damage or clarification of the circumstances of what happened. Moreover, attention to this should be more careful.”

Moreover, the verdicts in the few cases of pedophilia that reached criminal justice did not always guarantee “the financial compensation to which the victims were entitled. Even in the small number of cases where additional civil liability of the Church was declared.” Recent laws such as the Child and Adolescent Protection Act have also failed to impact compensation due to a “lack of resources.”

The Episcopal Conference will hold an extraordinary plenary meeting on Monday to analyze the document, as well as to study the proposal of the company Cremades, which asked to extend the audit period. Sources consulted by our newspaper claim that the audit has already been carried out, but it is necessary to “clarify some points that caused disagreements between the auditor and the auditee.”

Angel Gabilondo emphasized the most important fact: “Victims are the first, last and main message of this report.” The text, which will be submitted to the government, contains relevant recommendations. These include a public apology, payment of compensation and strengthening measures to prevent further incidents of violence. The subtitle of the 777-page before-and-after report couldn’t be more revealing: “The Response Needed.”