The independent commission responsible for carrying out the first official investigation into sexual violence committed in Spain against children within the Catholic Church met on Tuesday July 5 for the first time, without representatives of the clergy.
The Defender of the People (equivalent to the Defender of Rights in France), Ángel Gabilondo, "
chaired the first meeting of the Commission to draw up a report on sexual violence within the Catholic Church and on the role of public authorities
", said his services in a press release.
17 experts
The Spanish deputies had voted in March by a large majority the creation of this commission charged with carrying out the first official investigation in the country on pedocrime in the Church.
It was initially to include representatives of the clergy in its ranks, but the Spanish Church refused to participate and considered that this commission should investigate pedocrime within society as a whole and not only within the institution. Catholic.
Made up of 20 people, including 17 experts “
with experience in the care of victims, legal knowledge and victimology
”, this commission does not currently have a known deadline for delivering its conclusions.
Its objective is to "
collect proposals, measures, changes and initiatives that make it possible to obtain reparation for the victims and to prevent this from happening again
", Ángel Gabilondo explained in June.
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If she refused to sit on the commission, the Church had promised at the end of April, through the voice of the secretary general of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), Luis Argüello, that she would offer "
her collaboration to all the civil authorities : judges, Parliament, government, within the framework of the legislation in force
”.
El País recorded 1,600 victims in 2018
The Spanish Church, whose opacity has often been criticized, entrusted an external audit to a law firm in February, which said it wanted to go “ all the
way
” to shed light on this sexual violence. .
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Figaro Magazine
: Sexual abuse in the Church, "the face of evil"
Sexual violence against minors committed within the Catholic Church had not been the subject of any official investigation of any magnitude in Spain until now, unlike other countries such as the United States, France, Germany, Ireland or Australia.
In the absence of official figures, the newspaper El País launched its own investigation in 2018, which identified nearly 1,600 victims.
The Church, for its part, said in March that it had recorded more than 500 cases of sexual violence against minors since 2020.
