Status: 02/19/2022 09:54 a.m
Sexualized violence by Catholic clergy was taboo in Spain for decades. A systematic review is still pending. But the pressure on the church is growing, because more and more victims are speaking up.
Luis Alaejos Gonzales was 12 years old and attending a Marist Catholic school in the northern Spanish city of León when his teacher, Brother Isidro, first gave him a detention in a small group of four or five students.
After a while, the priest sent his classmates home, Luis says, and kept him as the last one, that happened three or four times: “He kept me there and asked me – it was evening, the school was practically empty, and I have the lesson in front of his table and he pulled me by the hand closer to him and grabbed me under my shorts.”
That was in the mid 1960s. Spain was a dictatorship under Franco, and the Catholic Church, as an important pillar of the regime, was a powerful institution. Luis Alaejos hasn’t told anyone about his experience for a long time.
A priest in his cassock and carrying a cross was a powerful figure for a twelve-year-old boy, he says today. He felt ashamed, like a coward and guilty because he hadn’t fought harder.
It took a long time before he was able to speak about the sexualized violence that a minister had done to him. Today, Luis Alaejos Gonzales is demanding clarification from the church instead of a cover-up.
Image: ARD Madrid
Not interested in enlightenment
Alaejos is now 70 years old and works as a writer in Madrid. He now speaks openly about what happened to him and criticizes: The church has never shown any interest in clarifying the matter, but has always covered everything up, such as transferring the priest in question to another province, changing his name, preventing any investigation and never cooperating .
The Catholic Church in Spain is still struggling with the idea of a country-wide, independent investigation of the abuse cases. The general secretary of the Spanish bishops’ conference even sensed a politically motivated attack on the church.
The communications director of the Episcopal Conference, José Gabriel Vera, has recently defended the decentralized approach of the Church, which opened offices in all Spanish dioceses in 2019 to listen to victims, accompany them, compensate them, “heal their lives”. He and other church representatives criticize that the investigation is aimed solely at the church, while child abuse is a problem for society as a whole in Spain.
A newspaper creates publicity
Victims’ organizations criticize this as a PR strategy, writes the newspaper “El País”, whose research has made a significant contribution to the movement in Spain on this topic, to the fact that more and more victims are making their experiences public.
Reporters from the newspaper gave Pope Francis a 385-page report a few weeks ago. The documentation includes 251 relevant cases, some of which date back to 1943. The Pope then asked the Spanish bishops to clarify the allegations.
The Archdiocese of Madrid meanwhile emphasized that comprehensive clarification is necessary, but so far has only distributed a video clip calling for alleged cases to be reported, because “every case of abuse” is “one too many”. Dealing openly with the topic can help to “heal wounds”.
An independent commission is to investigate
Politicians want to act now: the ruling socialist party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wants to entrust an independent commission chaired by the ombudsman, the Spanish Ombudsman, with the task of investigating. Preferably with the participation of the church, but they only want to comment further once the commission has been formed.
Alaejos is skeptical that the ombudsman can “accuse, bring things to light” but not really act.
The parties pursue different goals
The faction of Podemos, the left-wing coalition partner of the Socialist Party, also wants a parliamentary committee of inquiry to work in parallel with the independent commission of experts that Prime Minister Sánchez has in mind. The conservative People’s Party and the right-wing populists from Vox reject both proposals.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso, Madrid’s regional president of the conservative People’s Party (PP), said a few days ago that all institutions make mistakes. Alaejos doesn’t accept that: “It’s not a mistake, it’s a crime, a very serious crime.”
Outwardly a place of care: the school of the Marist Order in the 1960s. Here Brother Isidro (2nd row, 1st from left) assaulted Luis Alaejos Gonzales (2nd row, 7th from left).
Image: ARD Madrid
Many offenses become statute-barred
Meanwhile, Spain’s Attorney General Dolores Delgado instructed the regional public prosecutor’s offices to collect all suspected cases and reports of sexual abuse in the church environment and send them to Madrid. The deadline expired earlier this week. Alaejos has also reported his case to the public prosecutor in León. He considers it a scandal that many of the offenses are now statute-barred:
This is about child abuse. From children. We’re not talking about sexualised violence between adults, these are defenseless children. And when these crimes can become statute-barred, that’s really a shame.
It is also necessary to fight that this should no longer be possible in the future.
Spain’s long road to coming to terms with sexualized violence in the church
Franka Welz, ARD Madrid, February 14, 2022 3:37 a.m