A Peruvian alleged that a Spanish priest sent him €80,000 over a five-year-period to buy his silence because the missionary had abused him as a 14-year-old.
Following the accusation, Fr Eduardo Martín Clemens said he was a “victim of blackmail” who had sent the Peruvian money because “he was in need and I wanted to help a vulnerable person”.
“By God, I swear I did not buy his silence,” the 80-year-old Seville-based priest told the Spanish daily El País.
He said he had met the victim – whom he claimed had approached him – at a bus stop in Chimbote, Peru, where he had supplied holiday cover as a priest. Later, they had shared a bed in Trujillo, “because there was nowhere else for him to go”, he said.
“There was a hug, it’s true, and some things, but only because he was shivering with cold. Nothing else happened, I never abused him”, the priest maintained. “We had a lovely friendship for many years but when Pope Leo XIV was elected [the accuser] saw this as something to take advantage of, like manna in the desert.”
Two months ago, Fr Clemens offered his resignation from the parish of Santa Cruz in the Archdiocese of Seville, on grounds of his age and declining health.
The alleged victim, known as “L.B.”, told El País: “I was fed up in 2024 and I told him over the phone that what he had done was wrong and I was fed up of him not apologising. I said was going to make what happened public because he deserved it. He said, ‘Please don’t do this. My family will find out and suffer and none of this is their fault. I can give you whatever you need. Tell whenever you need something.’”
He continued: “I accepted because I was in a bad way financially and health-wise. I wanted to lodge a complaint right from the start but I have never had anyone to accompany me. I feel unprotected and vulnerable.”
“I came from a dysfunctional family of seven siblings. My dad was a taxi-driver who worked at night and slept during the day,” said the alleged victim. “Mum worked as a cleaner and could not care for the seven like a normal mother would. The fact someone was paying me attention like that was something new and nice.”
He alleged that Clemens, who did not reveal he was a priest and was in civilian attire, had approached him at a bus stop in Chimbote.
After chatting, the priest offered to pay his bus fare to Trujillo where he paid for a meal for the victim and invited him to a flat, where the abuse allegedly occurred.