EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and has an updated database of all known cases. If you know of a case that has not yet come to light, you can write to us at: [email protected]. If the case is in Latin America, the address is: [email protected].
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The first public act of reconciliation by the Portuguese Church for the pedophilia cases it committed took place this morning in Lisbon. In the front row of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation auditorium, the leadership of the Bishops’ Conference, led by its President, Bishop José Ornelas, heard a series of figures and testimonies that attest to the hells experienced by many Portuguese. At least 4,815 minors were molested in institutions or activities related to the Catholic Church between 1950 and 2022. The number is an estimate by the independent commission that investigated pedophilia, based on the 512 testimonies collected over a year. And it is, reiterated its president, psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, a minimalist calculation of what reality will have been.
The data presented make it possible to draw a map of the sexual abuse suffered in one of the European countries with the most entrenched Catholicism for decades. And there are some differences from what happened in others where the phenomenon has already been studied: the profile of the perpetrators and the date of the abuse. Strecht drew attention to both: 77% of the perpetrators were clergy, and a quarter of the attacks occurred in the last three decades. “The average age of Portuguese victims is 52, the lowest among European countries for which data are available,” he said. In his opinion, this peculiarity compared to France, Germany or Ireland is due to the role of the Portuguese seminaries as an educational institution. “Many cases occur in seminaries where poor families have sent their children to study, even if it wasn’t with the idea of pursuing a religious career,” he explained.
The main statistical data show that the mean age at the start of the abuse was 11.2 years and that 57.2% had suffered it more than once. Almost a third suffered from the attacks for more than a year. After the seminary, the most common places of abuse were the church (18.8%), the confessional (14.3%) and the vicarage (12.9%). The silence about what they suffered is overwhelming: almost half of the victims reported what they had experienced and only 4% reported it to the courts.
Only 25 cases were referred to prosecutors on the grounds that the offense was not prescribed. Strecht highlighted the impact of trauma on victims. Some had not yet spoken out about what they had suffered.
The day before the public presentation, the commission submitted its report to the leadership of the bishops’ conference. At that meeting, Bishop José Ornelas announced that an extraordinary assembly would be held in March to consider the document and decide “what is best to administer justice.”
The independent commission was created in November 2021 by decision of the bishops’ conference. And although not received equally by all bishops, she carried out her work without interference, which was one of the conditions required by her President, Pedro Strecht, for the study to be carried out. The commission also accessed classified information from the diocesan archives, which were opened following an express authorization from the Vatican sent out in mid-2022.
In France, the Commission of Inquiry into Pedophilia estimated that around 216,000 minors had been subjected to some type of religious abuse since 1950. The number rose to 330,000 when lay people were added to those employed in Catholic Church institutions and activities. The maximum compensation each victim will receive is 60,000 euros, higher than in Germany (50,000 euros) and Belgium (25,000 euros), albeit a far cry from the compensation negotiated in the United States.
In Spain, a year ago, the bishops commissioned an external audit from the Cremades & Clavo-Sotelo law firm to find out the reality of this problem. For years they refused to do so, saying they were isolated cases in the Spanish Church. So far, sources from the law firm claim to have interviewed just over a hundred victims. There is no exact date for the release of the results yet, but they estimate it will be before this June.
On the other hand, last March, the Congress of Deputies commissioned the Ombudsman with an inquiry into this issue. Ángel Gabilondo, director of the facility, has deployed two teams of specialists to collect testimonies that already exceed 400. However, he has not qualified whether a demographic study is carried out as in France, to know the extent that they have had these crimes in the past.
In the absence of official data, EL PAÍS has created a database that is regularly updated with the cases that have already come to light, either through judgments or in the media. There are currently 910 accused and 1,741 victims.
EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and has an updated database of all known cases. If you know of a case that has not yet come to light, you can write to us at: [email protected]. If the case is in Latin America, the address is: [email protected].
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