Spain's bishops and the country's government are on collision course once again over rival reports on church sexual abuse.
This
time the heated debate concerns a financial compensation plan for the
victims approved by the bishops' conference July 9 and rejected by
government authorities.
The bishops' plan provides for "holistic
reparation" and includes psychological, social, spiritual and financial
aspects. It also intends to compensate victims whose cases reached the
statute of limitations under criminal law or cannot be prosecuted by the
courts because those accused are dead. Until now, the policy of the
church in Spain was to pay compensation only when the case was proved
before a court and in the amount determined by the judge.
"Our
work doesn't begin or end today, but today is important," Archbishop
Luis Argüello of Valladolid, president of the Spanish bishops'
conference, said July 9 at a press conference after the special plenary
assembly of the bishops discussed the compensation document, known as
PRIVA, the Spanish acronym for the Comprehensive Reparation Plan for
Victims of Abuse.
"None of this can heal by itself the pain that
the victims have suffered over decades," but "we want to continue in
this determined drive to welcome them, accompany them and make amends,"
Archbishop Argüello said.
The document, however, is "a subsidiary
plan when the legal avenue has already been exhausted," the archbishop
stressed. In these cases, "when the legal avenues have been closed for
the victims," the church "wants to keep the door open to listen to any
victim and respond with a comprehensive reparation plan."
A
special body has been set up to implement the plan and examine each case
separately to find individual solutions. The commission, consisting of
church, legal and medical-forensic experts, may include a representative
of the victims, but does not necessarily have to do so. Experts will
advise each diocese on how to best attend to each victim.
"What
we have adopted today is not a legally binding decree that binds
dioceses and religious orders," Archbishop Argüello said, but rather is
about fulfilling a "moral obligation." He added that "since most of the
cases are from before the 1990s, many cannot be pursued because of the
statutes of limitations that limit ordinary law."
The estimate on
how many victims the church could help with PRIVA was not provided,
however the 2023 report by the bishops had found evidence of 728 sexual
abusers within the church since 1945. Seventy-five percent of the cases
had occurred before 1990 and more than 60% of the offenders were dead,
the conference said.
Spain's public ombudsman office indicated
that the total number of victims, including minors, could be much
higher. Following the ombudsman's report, Spain's government approved a
plan in 2023 to force the church to pay economic compensation to the
victims of abuse.
The government said in a July 8 statement it
would reject PRIVA even if all 67 bishops who attended the extraordinary
meeting in Madrid July 9 backed the plan, a number confirmed by
Archbishop Argüello. Three documents were approved -- with only one
abstention on one of the documents. The plan's "resolutions are not
mandatory, so in no way does it guarantee reparation," the government
lamented in its statement.
The bishops reacted strongly to the
statements of several members of the Cabinet, underscoring that the
compensation plan goes well beyond any legal obligation. "It's certainly
a unilateral plan, because it's the consequence of a free decision due
to a moral obligation," said Archbishop Argüello.
The bishops'
conference also refuted the government's concern about the sincerity of
the plan, since the church has entrusted the evaluation of economic
compensation to an independent panel of 10 members, only two of whom
represent the church.
"Observers may wonder why the government is
forcing the church to accept their way of compensating victims -- by
the rule 'the government decides, and then the church pays' -- but abuse
in the church became a political issue long ago in Spain, starting with
a fact that it's the government that first decided to investigate
church sexual abuse, before the commission backed by Spain's bishops was
established," said Yago de la Cierva, a Spanish communications
professor who teaches at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in
Rome, author of a book on crisis management for the church.
For
La Cierva, only politics can explain why the Spanish government is doing
nothing about the victims of sexual abuse in family settings, schools,
sports clubs and other environments. But the current situation "doesn't
look good for the church," he stressed.
"In Spain," the expert
said, "citizens give contributions to the church through taxes, but
since taxes first go through the government, those in power may
confiscate that money, and compensate victims directly."
Also victims fear politicization of the compensation campaign.
Right
before the special plenary assembly of the bishops, the government
summoned victims' associations July 8 to convey its support and inform
them of the progress of the work on a reparation system.
One
victim who spoke to the Spanish Catholic media outlet Alfa y Omega July 8
said that what the government does is "political maneuvers" and "hidden
agendas."
"Ideological interests cannot be allowed. There are
many people who are suffering," the victim, who spoke anonymously,
lamented. The victim acknowledged "a great advance in the action of the
church."
The problem for the victims however is that "we started from minus ten."
"This
is exactly right," La Cierva said. The church did not want to come
forward first, and seemed to take action only when pushed -- either by
the government or the paper El Pais, which has been in a crusade against
the church for decades," he said.
For the victims however, the
government's move now is what they call "robbing the church of its role
and prominence." In the conversation with Alfa y Omega, the victim said:
"It is unacceptable that they set themselves up as guarantors of
reparation when in reality they are not. Enough of trying to gain
electoral advantage."