More than 3,000 victims of sexual abuse and over 1,600 suspects have been identified in an eight-year-long probe by El Pais
FILE PHOTO. Altar boys during a procession in Navarra, Spain. © Getty Images / Eduardo Sanz; Europa Press
More
than 3,000 people have reportedly suffered sexual abuse as minors
within the Spanish Catholic Church, according to a eight-year
investigation by the El Pais newspaper which published its latest
findings on Monday.
The outlet began collecting data on sex crimes
within the church in 2018, when only 34 cases were officially known.
Since then, through public testimonies, judicial records, and church
admissions, the number of victims of pedophilia has risen to 3,084 with
the earliest incidents dating back to the 1940’s.
The list of
accused has reached 1,613, representing 1.46% of the 110,000 priests and
laypeople who have served in Spain in the past 80 years.
El Pais’
latest report, the sixth in five years, has added 58 new testimonies
from Spain accusing 50 clerics and laypeople, all men except two nuns,
and a separate section covering 21 testimonies from eight Latin American
countries with 24 individuals accused.
The outlet said that it
has shared all its findings with the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE),
the Vatican, and Spain’s human rights commissioner. However, the
newspaper noted that over the past five years, the Church has not
responded substantively to the allegations with the CEE prioritizing “opacity and denial” while the Vatican has delegated responsibility to the Spanish bishops.
El Pais has also noted a recurring pattern where accused priests are
often transferred between parishes or sent abroad, sometimes to Latin
America, without facing canonical or civil consequences. In several
cases, religious orders are accused of having moved known offenders to
new locations where they continued to have access to children.
Previously,
a 2023 survey by Spain’s human rights commissioner estimated that 1.13%
of the adult population, about 440,000 people, may have suffered sexual
abuse in a Catholic environment.
The latest findings mirror
similar revelations in the US, where the Diocese of Brooklyn is
currently seeking a global settlement for 1,100 child sex abuse cases,
having already paid over $100 million to survivors.
Pope Leo XIV,
who will visit Spain in June, is said to have received copies of El
Pais’s reports but the Vatican has yet to comment on the latest
findings.