Spain’s Catholic dioceses to collect abuse allegations after meeting with Pope

Spain’s Catholic Church is set to set up local commissions to hear complaints from abuse victims after talking to Pope Francis on Friday about allegations spanning more than eight decades detailed in a Spanish newspaper.

El Pais in December published the results of a three-year investigation that revealed it had uncovered possible abuses by 251 priests and some members of religious institutions against at least 1,237 victims between 1943 and 2018.

He said his correspondent delivered a 385-page dossier to the Pope on December 2, while the papal entourage and journalists were flying from Rome to Cyprus.

Cardinal Juan José Omella, president of Spain’s Episcopal Conference, discussed sexual abuse issues with him at the Vatican and said each diocese would set up a commission to receive accusations and then investigate.

They will “gather grievances, support people who feel wronged and prevent these things from happening again,” Omella told a news conference after the meeting.

Sexual abuse scandals in the global Catholic Church first made headlines in 2002, when the American newspaper Boston Globe wrote a series of articles exposing clergy abuse of minors and a pervasive culture of concealment within the Church.

Last June, the Pope said that the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church was a worldwide “catastrophe”. Since his election in 2013, he has taken a series of steps aimed at ending the sexual abuse of minors by clerics.

The Spanish church has rejected suggestions that it create an independent investigative body, as was done in France and recently announced in Portugal.

Omella said it is best for victims to be treated by local dioceses and for commissions to “clarify and carry out all necessary processes as required by the Holy See and civil courts.