MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Catholic Church is to arrange native commissions to hear complaints from victims of abuse after holding talks with Pope Francis on Friday about allegations over eight many years detailed in a Spanish newspaper.
El Pais in December revealed the outcomes of a three-year investigation it stated uncovered potential abuse by 251 monks and a few lay individuals from non secular establishments towards at the least 1,237 victims between 1943 and 2018.
It stated its correspondent gave a 385-page file to the pope on Dec. 2 whereas the papal entourage and journalists have been flying from Rome to Cyprus.
Cardinal Juan Jose Omella, the president of Spain’s Bishops’ Conference, mentioned intercourse abuse points with him on the Vatican and stated every diocese would arrange a fee to obtain accusations after which examine.
They “will collect complaints, help these individuals who really feel they’ve been harmed and stop these items from taking place once more”, Omella instructed a information convention after their assembly.
Sexual abuse scandals within the international Catholic Church first hit the headlines in 2002, when U.S. day by day the Boston Globe wrote a collection of articles exposing a abuse of minors by clerics and a widespread tradition of concealment throughout the Church.
Last June, the pope stated the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse disaster was a worldwide “disaster”. Since his election in 2013, he has taken a collection of steps geared toward wiping out sexual abuse of minors by clerics.
The Spanish church has rejected strategies it arrange an impartial investigation physique as has been carried out in France and has just lately been introduced in Portugal.
Omella stated it was higher for victims to be dealt with by native dioceses and the commissions would “make clear and perform all the mandatory processes as required by the Holy See and civil courts”.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by Alison Williams)
