EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and has a database updated with all known cases. If you know of any case that has not seen the light, you can write to us at: [email protected]. If it is a case in Latin America, the address is: [email protected].
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On the porch of the Almudena cathedral in Madrid, a phrase shatters a silence imposed for decades: “If there are no complaints, it is not because there have not been abuses, it is because the treatment we are going to receive is more painful than the abuse itself.” . These words are part of the story of a victim of abuse that was read this Monday afternoon during the first tribute of “recognition and reparation to people who are victims of abuse in the Church” organized by the archdiocese of Madrid. It was not the only story that was read at the beginning of the event: “It wasn’t just one person who abused me, it was abused by an entire community that allows it. The fault that there are ‘bad guys’ in the Church is that there are good ones who do not denounce the bad ones”; “Do not be afraid of the victims. Most of us are not looking to mediate our case or see how we can get an economic pinch from the Church.” Thus, chained, the testimonies of a dozen victims of sexual abuse and power in the religious sphere have come to light. The event was attended, in fact, the cathedral was full. The tribute, launched by Cardinal José Cobo, archbishop of Madrid and vice president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), It aims to recognize “that there have been abusers within the Church”, that the institution “has had a hard time recognizing it” and that “it is no longer about, neither only nor primarily about asking for forgiveness, but about welcoming, repairing and restoring and including in all its sense.”
Inside the cathedral, after reading the victims’ stories, the cardinal stressed in his speech that the justification that there are also abuses “in other places” should not serve as “consolation” to the Church and that God He will “judge” the Church for the damage it caused to “the most vulnerable people.” These words clash head-on with the speech of the last presidents of the EEC – including the current one, Luis Argüello –, who blame the media and the Government for “an unjustified accusation” for their management of pedophilia. In front of the media, the archbishop of Madrid has valued the role of the press in uncovering the scandal: “You have been brave. “You have helped us get there.” He has also stated that economic reparation is a pending issue in the Spanish Church, although he has initiated that there must be a total “reparation” that goes beyond the monetary issue. “We don’t want to, we can’t, we shouldn’t turn the page. Today the victims of abuse call us. It is with you, with your cry, that we want to be and stay with. God knows that no other voice moves us,” Cobo stressed.
The cardinal, before being named archbishop of the capital, was responsible for creating and launching Repara in 2019the office of care for victims of clerical pedophilia of the archdiocese and which extends its help to those affected by other dioceses, orders and even other areas such as within the family. Cobo promotes, unlike other bishops, a speech that seeks to demolish the hoaxes that revolve around clerical pedophilia, such as that the cases committed by clerics are few, that they are episodes that seek to harm the Church or that the victim has invented. The archdiocese of Madrid has received accusations of pedophilia against 33 of its clerics and workers, according to the EL PAÍS database, the only one in the absence of official data, which already counts 1,534 accused and 2,817 victims in Spain.
Apart from Cobo, who acted on behalf of the Madrid archdiocese and not as vice president of the EEC, no other representative of the bishops’ conference attended the event. Yes, members of the Spanish Conference of Religious have done so, as well as a representative of the Ombudsman and the Government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín. At the end of the tribute, an olive tree was planted on the esplanade of the cathedral porch “in memory of all the victims of abuse” in the Church.
This is not the first public act in recognition of victims of abuse in the Church. The bishop of Bilbao, Joseba Segura, honored the victims of pedophilia in his diocese in March 2023, officiated a “mass of forgiveness” where testimonies of those affected were read, among whom was a priest who suffered abuse, and also planted a olive. Segura and Cobo are one of the few Spanish prelates who publish annual reports on the work carried out by their episcopates on cases of pedophilia, although both still do not include relevant data, as the American or some German dioceses do: the initials of the accused, precise dates and places or how much they have paid in compensation.
Although public acts of recognition have been, for years, one of the demands of those affected, for the majority of them it is not the primary one nor the one that causes the most friction with the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The payment of compensation is the pending promise that the EEC has still not materialized. Nor has the Government given the victims a response. While the Executive approved six months ago a plan to create a common fund where bishops participate (and which has not yet been implemented), the Spanish prelates and religious orders intend to implement their own model without public supervision. Regarding this model, ratified by the entire Spanish episcopate months ago, the EEC still does not inform what specific steps the interested parties must take to request compensation nor what scales they will use. The Government warned the bishops that “it will not accept” that they compensate the victims without their control. The Church, in response, accuses him of “public and discriminatory signaling.”
The tense situation led the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to the Vatican to dialogue with the Pope on this issue, among other issues. The Pontiff already made it clear a few weeks ago that 50,000 euros is a sum “that is not worth it” to compensate a victim, that it is necessary to pay more. The Spanish average in canonical processes is 10,000 euros. On the other hand, the Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, urged Congress last week during the presentation of his report on abuses in the religious sphere to once and for all address the issue of compensation: “The victims are waiting, they need it.”
