Pedophilia in the Valley of the Fallen: "He gave us a glass of Benedictine liquor and abused us"

EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and has

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In the Valley of the Fallen, now called Cuelgamuros, children have also lived and still live.

It is a little-known aspect: the Benedictine monks from Silos who settled in the place in 1958, after the creation of the great ossuary for victims of the Civil War, had from the beginning a boarding school for minors that formed the choir.

They lived there, studied and were part of the children's choir that sang at masses in the monastery and the basilica.

Today it still works the same.

In that boarding school, according to two former students, there have also been abuses of minors.

Antonio Arévalo González studied there as soon as the abbey opened, from 1959 to 1961, from the age of nine to 11.

José G., a decade later, from 1967 to 1971, from 10 to 14 years old.

He has already reported it to the Ombudsman's investigation commission and Arévalo affirms that he will do so in the coming days.

In any case, EL PAÍS has already sent his testimony to that commission.

The two return to the place, to take the photo for this article, and they meet there, stirring up memories and feeling chills.

Antonio remembers that he himself took a box with human remains to the crypt, one day when they were returning from an excursion and found a truck in front of the basilica.

They asked the boys to lend them a hand.

It was in the early years of the Valley, when remains from cemeteries from all over Spain continued to arrive.

José describes the elevator that goes from the abbey to the basilica, crossing the mountain, and that they took every day to go down to sing, and sometimes to masses presided over by Franco.

Both, paradoxically, were the children of Republicans.

"As he sang quite well, he was a poor child and son of red, there was the opportunity to go to school," explains Antonio.

In the case of José, he requested it,

because his cousin had been an intern and had traveled with the school to Japan, "although the furthest I went later is to Alpedrete."

Only years later did she learn that his father had been a slave to Francoism: “he was in a disciplinary battalion in a forced labor camp, in another place.

For me it was an emotional shock to discover that the very place where I studied had been made by prisoners”.

The Choir of the Valley of the Fallen, in a concert around 1970.

Arévalo points to five monks, one who abused him and another four whom he saw or learned of his actions through his companions.

“I am 72 years old, and the truth is that I have lived my whole life with this.

After seeing how cases of abuse were coming to light, there came a time when I said: I have to participate in this.

I want to tell about the abuses that were committed there.

I had my first sexual experiences at the age of ten with the monks”.

He accuses Albino Ortega, who died in 1980, famous because he made a Benedictine liquor, as his aggressor.

"In

the western area had a distillery.

She took the children there.

I remember the sweet taste of the liquor.

He gave us a drink and then abused us.

In my case it was touching and masturbating, but he must not have liked me very much, he liked the fat ones and with two of my colleagues he went even further ”.

This monk was also his confessor: “He sat on top of you, and he was a sob.

I stopped going to confession and I had a problem, because I was a believer and I was going to receive communion without confessing, and that tortured me because I believed that I was in mortal sin”.

Ortega left the abbey in 1966 and moved to the monastery of Samos, in Galicia, until his death.

Another monk he accuses is LSB: “He would put his hand on your shoulder, and he would start to caress you.

He would touch your genitals over his clothes, and he would also take your hand and take it to his.

He was a pedophile, it was evident ”.

He too has passed away.

Arévalo points to three other religious, according to the confidences of other compañeros, although he admits that he was not attacked by any of them.

His initials are JAG, brother F. and one whose name he doesn't remember, only the nickname,

.

Students from the Valle de los Caídos boarding school, around 1970.

The second former student, José G., who prefers not to identify himself with more than initials, accuses another monk, TB, who left the abbey in 1975 to join the diocesan clergy and then has been a priest in the community of Madrid for almost 50 years.

“He was one of our watchmen.

With the excuse that I liked stamps, he took me to his cell to show me his collection, and there he pulled down my fly and began to grope me.

I was blocked, I didn't know what to do, I suppose he was going to look for an erection, he tried to masturbate me, between the

and that for me it was an unthinkable situation, I started to get angry, and I left there instinctively.

He told me not to say anything to my parents.

But I was not the only one.

It was a boarding school where you were at his mercy, away from your family.

But at 12 and 13 years old we already had the feeling of good and evil, and that we had to be cunning to survive”.

He never told anyone, nor did he denounce it: “To go against the Church, but also against a Church that was part of the State of the dictatorship, and in that place, it was crazy.

I would like the truth to be known now, within the democratic memory, and that there be truth, justice and reparation”.

This priest is still alive, he is 86 years old, and EL PAÍS has located him this week in a parish in Madrid.

He prayed in the church first thing in the morning, treated the journalist kindly and listened to the accusations with astonishment: "I have no idea what you are talking about," he assured.

When asked if he believes that whoever accuses him made it up, he shrugs.

He also claims that this is the first time someone has talked to him about it.

In other words, it confirms that no canonical investigation has been opened in his case, contrary to the Pope's orders, since no Church institution has called him at least to ask him if the accusations, known for a year, are true or No.

The six complaints appear in the reports that EL PAÍS delivered in December 2021 and June 2022 to the Vatican and the Spanish Church, with accusations against a total of 451 clergy and laymen.

Although between a year and six months have elapsed since then, and this newspaper has asked the abbey on numerous occasions about the results of its investigations, which are required by ecclesiastical regulations, the prior has chosen not to respond.

“Everything related to the Valley is led by God, and since there is a transcendent reality, we do not worry about it, and since he takes the reins of history, we let him resolve it.

We understand that journalists have his job, but we have made the decision to leave everything to divine providence, ”one of the monks replied in a telephone conversation.

Regarding the allegations of abuse,

Antonio Arévalo, who denounces abuses at the Valle de los Caídos boarding school, when he was a schoolboy at the abbey, in 1960.

This passivity also means that the Benedictines, after receiving the complaint against TB in the first report in this newspaper, have not informed the Archdiocese of Madrid either, despite the fact that he has then practiced for almost 50 years in the Madrid community.

This bishopric has learned of the case through EL PAÍS and confirms that the abbey of the Valley of the Fallen has not communicated it.

The diocese of Madrid is one of the few that practices transparency and, after reviewing its files, ensures that there is no complaint against this priest during these years.

But he explains that it is the order of the Benedictines who must investigate it.

He points out that in his day he became a priest without any report that warned of anything negative.

As in other cases, the problem of the real will of the Spanish Church to investigate the abuse of minors and to be totally transparent with what the orders and dioceses know is once again raised.

Given the opacity and refusal of most of them to collaborate in bringing the truth to light, the role of the Ombudsman will be decisive.

Ángel Gabilondo has assured that the commission of investigation of pedophilia in the Church, approved in March in Congress by all groups, except Vox and two former UPN deputies, will request all the information and access to its files from the Church.

It has not yet reached that stage, because for the moment the work is focused on collecting testimonies, which are already more than 400. The only reference statistics is the one kept by EL PAÍS, after the start of its investigation in 2018.

Antonio remembers that he cried a lot: “We got up at seven in winter and in summer, at half past six.

We would go to the chapel to sing matins, then study, breakfast, class, to sing at twelve o'clock mass... There came a time when I told Father Albino that I was going to tell my mother that he was groping us all day.

It was before Christmas, which was spent there.

And I think he thought: we better get rid of this one.

I left there on February 2, 1961, halfway through the course.

They took me to Larrea's bus, which was leaving the hostel, and put me with a suitcase at kilometer 27 of the La Coruña highway.

I went home and upon arrival they asked me what I was doing there.

I said that I could not continue in the school because I had lost my voice.

Sixty years later, he has recovered it to talk about what she experienced there.

If you know of a case of sexual abuse that has not seen the light of day, write to us with your complaint at

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