Spain’s Catholic bishops have agreed to let the Spanish government’s ombudsman have the final say in the church’s compensation of victims of sexual abuse by clergy members who have died or whose possible crimes are too old to be prosecuted.
The president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Luis Arguello, centre and Jesus Diaz Sariego, President of Spain’s Conference of Religious Orders, left, take part in a press conference in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, July 9, 2024.
BARCELONA, Spain () — Spain’s Catholic bishops agreed Thursday to let the Spanish government’s ombudsman have the final say in the church’s compensation of victims of sexual abuse by clergy members who have died or whose possible crimes are too old to be prosecuted.
The agreement, which envisages a one-year window for claims, marks a rare concession by the Catholic hierarchy.
It is aimed at resolving disagreements between the left-wing government and church authorities over reparations after victims criticized the church’s original in-house compensation proposal.
The Spanish bishops conference said in a statement that the new agreement will allow victims who don’t want to seek help directly from the church to turn to the government and the state’s ombudsman, who has taken a lead role in shedding light on abuse.
The ombudsman will evaluate the claims and ultimately will have the final say on any possible awards.
Spain’s Justice Minister Félix Bolaños said in a press conference in Madrid that “hundreds” of victims whose aggressors had passed away or were now very old could finally receive recognition of the abuse and receive economic reparations paid by the church.
“Today, we have paid a debt to the victims,” Bolaños said.
“It is true that the State has acted late, but we are acting now.
Yesterday, the victims couldn’t do anything because these crimes had proscribed.”.
While church authorities in many Western European countries have created compensation plans for abuse victims, either run by the church or independent experts, the Spanish process is unusual because of the involvement of the state itself in the process.
In recent years, the once staunchly Catholic Spain has begun to reckon with a decades-long legacy of abuse by priests and cover-up by generations of bishops and religious superiors, mainly thanks to the initial reporting by newspaper El País.
Spain’s parliament tasked the Spain’s ombudsman to investigate and in 2023 the ombudsman delivered a damning 800-page report that investigated 487 known cases of sexual abuse and included a survey that calculated the number of possible victims could reach the hundreds of thousands.
The political importance lies in whether the issue moves from public comment into formal action, party response, court record, election authority notice or administrative decision.
For public institutions and political groups, the next test is whether the issue remains a public argument or turns into a formal response, legal proceeding, administrative instruction or election-related communication.
