The Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, appeared this Tuesday in the Congress of Deputies before the Joint Congress-Senate Commission for Relations with the Ombudsman to present the Report on sexual abuse in the sphere of the Catholic Church and the role of public authorities. A necessary response.
Ángel Gabilondo recalled that the Ombudsman institution registered and delivered the report to the president of the Congress of Deputies on October 27, 2023 and days later, on November 2, to the president of the Government. "It is the time of Parliament, as a consequence of the commission and after this Report. It is the moment of the Legislative and the Executive. The victims expect the recommendations and suggestions made to be implemented as soon as possible and in the best way," said the Ombudsman.
The Report, of 777 pages, fulfills the commission received from the Congress of Deputies after the approval of a Non-Law Proposal (PNL), on March 10, 2022, which had a broad majority: 286 yes votes, 51 no votes and two abstentions.
According to the Ombudsman, the report "responds to a situation of suffering and loneliness that for years has been covered by an unjust silence and underlines the risk factors and consequences of these abuses, exposes the responses given by the Catholic Church and how the issue has been addressed by public authorities."
During his appearance, Ángel Gabilondo reiterated that "the victims are the first sense, the last sense and the central sense of this report" and pointed out that the objective has been to describe the dimension of the phenomenon of abuse, its causes and its consequences in the affected people and he expressed his hope that the work carried out and the conclusions and recommendations derived from them "contribute to the determination of the facts and responsibilities, to the reparation of the victims and to the planning of public policies aimed at the prevention and attention of cases of sexual abuse committed on children and adolescents."
That is why he urged the deputies and senators that make up the Commission to implement the recommendations contained in the Report as soon as possible. "The victims are demanding it, they are waiting. They need it."
Contact email for victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church: atencionvictimas@defensordelpueblo.es
Recommendations
The Ombudsman has detailed in his speech before deputies and senators the 24 recommendations proposed in the Report and has highlighted that "they focus on the attention and response to the victims."
Among them, there is the one to hold a public act of recognition and symbolic reparation to the victims for the prolonged period of neglect and inactivity, particularly between 1970 and 2020. It also advocates creating a state fund for the payment of compensation to the victims and that a special administrative body -created for the occasion- be the one to establish a procedure for recognition and reparation of victims of aggression or child sexual abuse in the sphere of the Catholic Church.
The recommendations submitted to the Cortes Generales and the Government also propose various regulatory reforms for the clarification and reparation of what happened, and to prevent similar events and it is requested that the Catholic Church provide the necessary means to help the victims of sexual abuse in the recovery process, offering treatment to the victims or family members, when required, as well as that the dioceses and institutes of consecrated life open to researchers the information contained in their archives.
If you want to tell your story in La Voz de Lanzarote: saladeprensa@lanzarotemedia.net
The testimonies of the victims
Ángel Gabilondo has emphasized, again, the importance of the testimonies, collected by the Victims Assistance Unit because "they reveal the devastating impact that sexual abuse has had on their lives."
The Report includes the testimonies of 487 victims, obtained in interviews conducted both in Madrid and in other parts of the national geography. Of these, the vast majority (84%) were men. The victims underline the emotional and behavioral problems they suffer as a consequence of the abuse. And a third of these pointed out having had symptoms of post-traumatic stress and, some of them, had experienced depressive symptoms, feelings of shame and stigmatization and suicidal action.
In addition to the direct testimonies collected to prepare the Report, other sources from official bodies, the Church itself and media investigations have been taken into account.
Sexual abuse in Spanish society: 11.7% of minors suffered abuse
To frame the dimensions of the problem, it was considered necessary to have a demographic survey, and thus set the incidence of sexual abuse in any area of Spanish society, in addition to the religious one. After the mandatory bidding process, in compliance with public procurement regulations, the realization of the survey was awarded to the company GAD3. This reveals, among other things, that 11.7% of the people interviewed affirm having suffered sexual abuse, before turning 18 years old.
A 3.36% states that this abuse occurred in the family sphere. Likewise, the GAD3 survey concludes that 0.6% of the representative sample of the population surveyed has been sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest or religious, and that 1.13% that the aggression was registered in the religious sphere.
The survey contemplates a significant methodological and numerical sample of the Spanish population: 8,013 people. The disaggregated data of the survey are included in Part III Chapter III of the Report (pages 166 to 194). However, the Ombudsman sent the complete documentation of the survey to the president of the Congress of Deputies on August 20, responding to a letter received from Francina Armengol, on July 23, in which the request, formulated by members of the Bureau and spokespersons of the Joint Commission for Relations with the Ombudsman, to have the complete survey was collected.
New testimonies
After the Report was made public and to date -October 2024- the Victims Assistance Unit has registered dozens of new testimonies of which 188 have been considered valid, now counting with 674. The Ombudsman has pointed out that these new cases do not modify the conclusions of the study, but rather "reaffirm them", and that this is not a quantitative but a qualitative Report. "It has not been our intention to know the number of cases registered in Spain, but to know the scope of the problem, how the victims can be repaired and what can be done to try to prevent it from happening again."
The Ombudsman has stated in his speech that "sexual abuse in the Catholic Church constitutes a serious social and public health problem. A problem that has caused a lot of damage. The seriousness of the phenomenon derives from the intensity of the damage suffered by the victims, from the number of people affected and from the betrayal of the trust placed by them, and by a very important part of society, in an institution that has had an undeniable power in Spain and a moral authority in society."