Shocking incidents of abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain

The Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) presented the report entitled “Let’s protect children: let’s move on”, which investigates cases of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Spain.

When announcing that it has received complaints about 927 children exposed to sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Spain since 1940, CEE stated that 82.62 percent of the victims were boys and 17.38 percent girls.

75 PERCENT OF EVENTS BEFORE 1990

In the information provided, it was also indicated that 75 percent of the incidents of sexual abuse were prior to 1990 and that most of these cases were detected in the years 1960-1980.

It was shared that 52 percent of the 728 religious officials, most of whom were accused of school sexual abuse, were clergy, 208 were not priests, and 63 percent of the perpetrators were long dead. .

EEC APPEAL

CEE, which is the first to publish a document on cases of sexual abuse in the church, said it “learned from the painful events of the past and apologized.”

CEE, which provides training within the Church to end sexual abuse, reported that nearly 150,000 people, most of them children, attended the corresponding courses.

Some non-governmental organizations affirm that, considering the period of the dictatorship (1936-1974) of the cases of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, which has been on the agenda since the end of 2021 in Spain, it can actually reach 100 thousand, but that it has not been sufficiently investigated and confidence and guarantees have not been given to the victims. (AA)