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2022

  • February 2022: Investigating the sexual abuses in the Spanish Catholic Church

Like in many countries in Europe and beyond, the Spanish Catholic Church has been at the centre of public attention lately due to reports of sexual abuse. While the Catholic hierarchy in countries like France admitted the creation of an independent commission to investigate the matter, the results of which have already been published, the Spanish hierarchy was quite reticent for a long period of time. Spanish newspaper El País wrote a 385-page report about 251 members of the Church and at least 1237 victims. It was delivered to the Vatican and the Spanish Episcopal Conference. After a meeting with the Pope in January 2021, the Spanish Catholic hierarchy confirmed that the investigation would be carried out internally and that there was no need to create a separate independent body for this matter.

In the last few days, the debate has gained greater attention after famous writer Alejandro Palomas denounced in a radio programme the abuses he suffered in a Catholic school. Through its social media channels, the writer appealed directly to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to take action at the government level. Left-wing political parties proposed an initiative to create a commission to investigate the cases. Since then, parliamentary discussion has taken place about the possibility of setting up a parliamentary commission to investigate the abuse cases.

D 15 February 2022    AJulia Martínez-Ariño

CNRS Unistra Dres Gsrl

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