An audit commissioned by the Church in Spain into child abuse found 2,056 victims: an official survey puts the figure at almost half a million

At least 2,056 minors were victims sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Spain, according to an audit carried out by a law firm at the request of the religious institute, we read in a document released Thursday.

This figure is well below the estimate of a report by an independent commission coordinated by the Ombudsman, released at the end of October, according to which the number of victims would amount to hundreds of thousands.

As published Clarion at the end of October the first official report on pedophilia in the Spanish Church and, although it does not provide precise figures, includes an investigation from which It can be estimated that almost half a million Spaniards admits to having suffered sexual abuse in a church environment.

The data from the audit commissioned by the Spanish Church – which the office delivered last weekend to the Episcopal Conference (EEC) – almost two years later commissioned – is included in the update of a document on the measures adopted by religious people against child abuse.

However, the EEC The audit has not yet been made public in its entirety.which he committed to accomplishing at a future date.

“In conclusion, from the complaints a minimum of 2,056 victims are deducedeven if it is objectively evident that the number is higher”, admits the EEC in its document, citing the report of the company Cremades & Calvo Sotelo.

The Spanish Episcopal Conference has commissioned the Spanish company Cremades & Calvo Sotelo Abogados to carry out the independent verification of cases of abuse in the ecclesiastical context.

The verification, which reports 1,383 complaints “from 1905 to today”, but does not estimate the number of religious people who have committed sexual abuse, specifies that the profile of the victims “is predominantly male”, that the abuses committed mainly in “colleges and seminaries” and at the hands of priests or professors.

In the team of lawyers hired by the Church there is an Argentinian: the lawyer Juan Pablo Gallegoprofessor, international consultant and specialist in abuse in the Church who was the defender of the victims who denounced the priest Julio César Grassi more than twenty years ago.

Gallego became famous in the media and his name became a reference to the fight against ecclesiastical aberrations when, in 2009, he managed to get Grassi sentenced to 15 years in prison for corruption of minors and sexual abuse of some boys he had under his protection. take care of them and educate them at the Happy Children Foundation.

Clarion interviewed Gallego in April. “The report aims to determine responsibility, recognize victims and provide them with huge compensation,” she later told this newspaper.

The EEC commissioned the audit – the first investigation into the matter led by Spain’s Catholic Church, highlighted by years of opacity from victims – in February 2022, and it was initially expected to take a year but was ultimately delayed.

The report of the independent commission coordinated by the Ombudsman contained a survey according to which 0.6% of the Spanish adult population (more than 200,000 people out of a total of 39 million at the time) said they had suffered sexual abuse by of religious Catholics when they were minors.

The figure rises to 1.13% of the adult population (equal to more than 400,000 victims) if we count the abuses committed by lay people in religious environments, Catholic or other confessions.

The Cremades & Calvo Sotelo relationship recommends that the EEC “recognise the damage caused”, take “measures”. prevention” to prevent it from happening again and provide “victims with quality resources to repair their damage.

The EEC says it has established action protocols against abuse, “child protection” offices and has already compensated some victims.

Spain is a country with a profound religious traditionwhere approximately 55% of the population identifies as Catholic and where 1.5 million children study in approximately 2,500 Catholic schools.

Unlike France, Germany, Ireland, the United States or Australia, Spain had never conducted research on pedophilia among the clergy until recent studies.