Following France, another official report casts a dramatic shadow over sexual abuse and pedophilia within the Church: In Spain, an investigation commissioned by the Parliament and carried out by the Ombudsman’s office found that approximately 440 thousand people were victims of sexual abuse in a religious context. . Half of these abuses were committed against children.
The report is the result of a 15-month investigation that began after a series of journalistic investigations by the newspaper El Pais. The data from nearly 8,000 interviews is horrifying: 1.13 percent of the adult Spanish population says they have been sexually abused in the Catholic world, and 0.6 percent say they have been the victim of a Catholic priest or cleric in the last 50 years. According to the report, there are approximately 200,000 children who are victims of pedophilia in the church.
“The report, which we read in a letter from the Ombudsman, underlines that the reaction of the Catholic Church, at least at the official level, has long been characterized by denial or minimization of the problem. Some victims have not only had to face denials and concealments, but also the representation of their representatives “There is also pressure and reactions in which they are accused of the abuses they have been subjected to.” Ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo wrote “to all the bishops: some of them responded to us, they opened their archives to us.
But others scolded us. I would be lying if I said that no one cooperated with us or that there was extraordinary cooperation.” Having said this, he added: “I think the church realized that this would be the biggest scandal. “Obviously not cooperating with a society that wants to know the truth.”
The report includes some recommendations, including “an act of public recognition and symbolic compensation for victims of long-term abandonment and inactivity, especially between 1970 and 2020” and the creation of a state fund for victims’ compensation. The Ombudsman also demands that the Catholic Church provide the “necessary tools to help victims of sexual abuse”, provide them with treatment, and make information from its archives available to researchers.
In light of this report, Spain became the country with the highest official estimate of victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the world. A similar study conducted in France in 2021 found that more than 330 thousand people in the inter-Alpine religious world were subjected to such violence. Last February, Portugal accused priests and clergy of abusing 5,000 children.
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Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
