Reach the end

Pope Francis with several priests and cardinals, in a file image.Giuseppe Lami / EFE

The Society of Jesus has done something necessary and worth highlighting: investigate decades of pedophilia in its centers and assume the payment of reparations to the victims.

This initiative, in addition to its specific value, also has the virtue of highlighting the black hole in which other religious orders, the vast majority of dioceses and the Spanish Episcopal Conference continue to abuse minors than Spanish families. deposited at your expense.

For the first time in Spain —except for the specific and recent agreement of the Marists of Catalonia with 25 victims— an order subjects its journey to scrutiny in this criminal reality, which in general has been hidden in confessionals, secrecy and, at best of the cases, the obscure canonical investigations without judicial means.

After two years of work, the Jesuits, who run 68 educational centers in Spain, have admitted abuse of 81 minors and 37 adults.

The ways to continue investigating future cases remain open.

This order demonstrates thus placing itself in the appropriate place: that of investigation, transparency and reparation to the victims, within the Christian paradigm to which the orders are said to be faithful but, above all, within compliance with civil legality, which is which they always had to obey.

After the great scandals that broke out in recent years in several countries, the Pope convened a summit in February 2018 that brought together representatives of the bishops' conferences from around the world in the Vatican.

The effort was commendable and unusual, but despite the promises to get to the truth and sing the mea culpa, the truth is that little progress was made.

The summit concluded with vague commitments - "the Church will never tire of doing whatever it takes to bring to justice those who have committed such crimes" - that disappointed the victims and that, ultimately, have depended on each diocese and Episcopal Conference.

A year and a half after the summit, the Holy See published a formulary, a kind of manual for action on each case.

During this time, some dioceses have also approved action protocols.

And the Spanish Episcopal Conference created a commission whose objectives were light years ahead of those of its counterparts in France, Ireland, Poland and the United States, where large-scale investigations were opened and compensation was projected.

In Spain, the State Attorney General's Office expressed its concern in June 2019 about the opacity of the clergy and gave as an example the independent commissions created in the Netherlands or Australia, with concrete conclusions on thousands of victims.

The step taken by the Jesuits is, therefore, exemplary and necessary.

They are where they need to be.

The Episcopal Conference, dioceses and other orders should follow suit.