Customary of discretion, even secrecy in the matter, the Spanish Catholic Church has identified 728 members of its clergy as perpetrators of sexual assaults on 927 children since the 1940s, according to the first report of its internal investigation. “ We acknowledge the harm caused said Gabriel Vera, spokesman for the Spanish Bishops’ Conference. From the same source, 63% of the attackers are said to have died, most of them priests and religious.
With our correspondent in Madrid, Francois Musseau
“ We want to know what happened in the selection of clergy candidates. What pushed a person who dedicated his life to God to be the author of sexual abuse. These are the words of the Spanish Episcopal Conference and it is a new language. For years, the Spanish Church has preferred to remain silent on the very taboo subject of pedophilia within it. She says today that she wants to tell the whole truth after Pope Francis forcefully asked her in 2022 to end her silence.
However, the Spanish bishops are only half playing the game. They refuse to hold an independent commission as in France or Portugal. They do not allow their bishoprics to collaborate with the media and the government to count the sexual abuse committed on minors. The newspaper El País speaks of at least 1,200 documented cases for three years without the Episcopate saying anything. The Spanish daily, which closely follows the issue of pedophilia in the Church, believes that the reality could be some time.