The Ombudsman of Greuges, jurist Esther Giménez-Salinas, appeared this Monday before the investigative commission of the Parliament of Catalonia that investigates pedophilia in the Church. Her first words were: “Sexual abuse is not a sin. It's a crime". The trustee thus tacitly responded to the criticism of the Episcopal Conference, which disqualified the figures from the recent report of the Ombudsman.
“It is of little use to me to say that more abuse occurs in the family.” The Ombudsman considers it "horrible" that balls are thrown out and the issue is avoided "because we are not here to compare which is worse." Giménez-Salinas maintains that the black figures of crime in any country are a pyramid. At the base are “unreported or uninvestigated crimes”; and at the top, “those judged or punished.”
“The black figure of criminality in sexual abuse in the Church is immense,” he stressed. “We have done atrocious things to our children,” she said at another point in the hearing and stressed that not all of the perpetrators “are octogenarians or have already died. There are many who are healthy and alive. Their victims would want to talk to them and ask for forgiveness. If we pay attention to the Ombudsman's figures, there are many."
Not punishing these behaviors “leads to impunity,” he insisted. The prescription, from which so many pedophiles have benefited, “does not extinguish the crime, it only extinguishes criminal responsibility. But time does not heal the victims of sexual abuse and, above all, it does not make the guilty innocent.” If somewhere “there has not been transparency,” he added, it is in the chapter of abuses in the ecclesial environment.
The dynamics of sin, confession and penance, the Ombudsman insisted, do not work here because “we are not dealing with sins, but with crimes.” The complaints of opacity were endorsed by Aida C. Rodríguez, attached to the Sindicatura de Greuges for the defense of the rights of children and youth, who also appeared before the Parliament. Both criticized the lack of a single system for reparation for victims.
One of his proposals, which the Parliament will study, is the creation of this centralized entity to care for the abused. Deputy Glòria Freixa, from Junts per Catalunya, said that it does not matter “if there is one or 400,000 victims. This has happened and requires a unified, clear and institutional response.” The fact that the majority of abuses are intrafamilial, added Raquel Sans, from ERC, “does not exclude the institutional responsibility of the Church.”
The work of the Parliament, which once again was not attended by Vox, Ciutadans and the PP (the CUP was not present this time either, but because its representative alleged a family emergency) took place in the midst of a tsunami due to the Ombudsman's report, which did not cited figures of victims, although they could be more than 400,000, if the numbers from a survey of 8,013 people are extrapolated. The Episcopal Conference disqualified these extrapolations.
“This is a survey that is too small for such conclusions and the margin of error of any demographic investigation is ignored,” critics maintain. Its supporters, however, emphasize that the margin of error can be downward or upward, and that these 400,000 victims are not very far from those that have emerged in France, where the Church has less weight and has admitted 330,000 victims. .
The controversy has been exacerbated by Pope Francis' unusual call to the Spanish bishops at the end of this month. In theory it will be to evaluate the audit that two bishops have carried out on the situation of the Spanish seminaries, but it will be impossible for the recommendations of the Ombudsman's report, which insists that the victims must be heard and compensated, not appear in the meeting.
The Church has replied that it has already compensated victims, although the Ombudsman himself complains about the opacity with which it does so and the confidentiality clauses it imposes. The bishops would agree to participate in the state compensation fund recommended by Ángel Gabilondo, if all victims are included, not just those of the Church. The Parliament has given them a symbolic wink of complicity...
The Parliament's commission is known as the "commission of inquiry into pedophilia in the Church", although in reality its "object is the analysis and investigation of sexual violence against children and young people in the context of the Catholic Church and in others." This addition especially pleases the Episcopal Conference, which criticizes that the Ombudsman's report focuses on abuses committed by religious people.
Although ecclesiastical pedophilia has monopolized a good part of the hearings of the commission, which was established in November 2022, its action extends to the “school, sports and leisure areas, among others in which there has been no collaboration to assume responsibilities.” and compensate the victims.” The president of the Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Omella, is scheduled to testify before his lordships.
The Ombudsman insisted on the idea that “a crime is a crime. If the victim is a minor, even more so. If you suffer the crime at the hands of a teacher and with abuse of superiority, even more so. And if it occurs within the scope of the Church, even more so.” Ángel Gabilondo, the Ombudsman, said it in other words during the presentation of his investigation, of more than 700 pages. From the Church, he recalled, “exemplarity” can be expected.
Esther Giménez-Salinas took advantage of her appearance to advise the creation of a single institution to care for the victims of this scourge, for which she did not want to put figures at the moment. She does not rule out, however, starting new studies and investigations to corroborate or not the numbers that emerge from the work presented by the Ombudsman. “If it is 200,000, 300,000 or 400,000 we will find out.”
