The Cremades law firm
"The Episcopal Conference has already received the report from the Cremades office
The bishops commissioned the investigation of cases of abuse in the Church to the law firm in February 2022, a work that was initially supposed to last a year, but whose presentation deadline has been delayed several times until to provoke the anger of the EEC, which on October 11 gave an ultimatum and demanded the delivery of the report within ten days. Once due, the bishops agreed at the meeting of the last plenary assembly to give a little more time to the office, which promised to deliver it these days.
Nevertheless, the prelates, who have already seen progress in the investigation, have lowered the expectations of this report, which they have downplayed in recent days.
The president of the EEC, Joan Josep Omella, said on Tuesday that the Cremades investigation was "a little late". "When we deliver it, we will have the work done by the Ombudsman, to whom we gave all the information", emphasized Omella.
The Ombudsman's report, presented on October 27, does not provide specific figures for the abuses committed in Spain by members of the Church, but it does collect testimonies and a survey that indicates that 1.13% of Spaniards have suffered abuses in the religious field and 0.6% by a priest or religious. The bishops have reduced the reliability of these figures and have criticized the extrapolation of the survey data.
However, after the publication of the Ombudsman's report, which called for the creation of a compensation fund for victims in which the Church would participate financially, the EEC has decided to address the issue of compensation and has announced that all victims will be reparated. The Church, however, will not be part of this public fund, since for this it requires the participation of the other institutions in which the same type of abuse was committed.
The president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona Joan Josep Omella, considered last week that the results of this investigation have arrived "a little late". "In the end we will count a certain number of abuses", he pointed out, to explain that the resulting sum will not be the 440,000 victims that was calculated from the extrapolation of a GAD3 survey included in the Defender's study del Poble, Ángel Gabilondo, a calculation that the head of the survey, Narciso Michavila, recommended not to do.
In relation to that extrapolation of figures from the 700-page report that Gabilondo presented to the Congress of Deputies, Cardinal Joan Josep Omella pointed out at the time that the Church was aware of 1,125 cases and expressed doubts about its reliability of the figures
"We really appreciated the work done by the Ombudsman in his report. Nothing is perfect. Everything in the world can be improved", said Omella, who expressed a "deep sadness" for the existence of abuses.
"What is important is to listen to the victims. Hopefully we do this with the other sections of society, in which there have also been victims and they need to be heard. It's not an excuse, it's a call", he continued. According to the cardinal, the Spanish Church has been working on reparation and listening to the victims for "some time", with the creation of diocesan offices and a coordinating body in the episcopate so that the reparation "is comprehensive, also economic". The prelate explained that the bishops have their "own repair plan" but they will be attentive to what the Spanish Government proposes.
