Spanish bishops announce national investigation of clerical sexual abuse

Caving to pressure from abuse survivors, politicians and the media, the Spanish bishops announced on Tuesday that they will conduct a full, nation-wide investigation of clerical sexual abuse.

Cardinal Juan José Omella, president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, and lawyer Javier Cremades announced a twelve-month investigation with the necessary historical “breadth” which will include both dioceses and religious congregations.

This decision backtracks from what Omella said last month, when he announced there was no need to carry out such an investigation, because each diocese and religious congregation were doing so independently.

In the beginning of the investigation, 18 professionals will take part in the process. Although  reporters were told the commission will analyze cases linked to both the present and the past, it is unclear what historical periods will be included.

According to Omella, the investigation will be carried out in a way that allows the formation of a “credible audit that is the truth of the facts,” intended to be “innovative, inclusive and enterprising.”

Asked if there is a conflict of interest for Cremades, who is a member of Opus Dei and a practicing Catholic, he spoke of his decades long career defending victims in various well-known Spanish cases, such as ones involving air traffic control strikers and small bank investors. Furthermore, he said, “belonging to the board of trustees of a dozen foundations [related to the Church] is an honor and an asset, not a conflict.”

“As a Catholic and as a member of Opus Dei, I am fully convinced that the Church must get to the bottom, and rectify everything that is necessary,” Cremades said. However, “I am here as a lawyer, not as a believer, nor as anything else.”

The lawyer acknowledge that, for the 18 members of the firm who will take part, it is “the most complex matter we have faced to date in our career.”

A “hybrid model” will be followed, with the help of the professionals who prepared the report for the Archdiocese of Munich, Germany, and also the advice of Marc Sauvé, who carried out the investigation into the historic sexual abuse by clerics in France.

“We are just beginning,” insisted both Omella and Cremades when addressing journalists. The press conference came minutes after Omella officially signed the request for the investigation. 

“We will go all the way. We have accepted a mandate to work independently and in collaboration with the dioceses, which is an irreplaceable part of the investigation,” said the lawyer, who stressed that this ecclesial project “is not an alternative, but a complement” to the one that will be carried out by a commission set up by the Spanish parliament. Cremades has reportedly already met with the person tasked with leading that investigation.

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“I understand the victims,” said Cremades, “especially the most active ones belonging to the associations. I hope that our work will help, support and repair them.”

He did ask them for a “vote of confidence,” because they are going to be offered “individualized attention.” 

He added: “We want to put the person at the center” aware that “we are facing a correction of a systemic power struggle in society.”

Both the cardinal and the lawyer insisted that the voice of the victims will be heard.

“Our goal is to help and repair the victims by expanding the channels of collaboration and denunciation,” said the archbishop of Barcelona.

In fact, Omella began his speech “publicly” asking for “forgiveness to all the victims who have suffered and continue to suffer so much pain.”

However, the cardinal also urged the investigation of other institutions, since sexual abuse is not only a problem within the Catholic Church – an estimated 80 percent of abuses of minors take place within the family environment.

“We are pained by all the abuses in other institutions and we would ask that they also be investigated,” the prelate said.

He also shared the interest of the Church to “take a step forward in its obligation of social transparency, of help and reparation for the victims and collaboration with the authorities, to evaluate positively and negatively what we have done for the good of the victims and of society.”

Cremades also said that the matter of financial compensation to survivors will also be studied, pointing out that the law firm would work “without barriers or limits.

Omella also said that the Holy See will be informed “immediately” of this initiative and added that he does not doubt the Vatican’s support for this proposal. 

“We have always followed the protocols of Rome and already in the ‘ad limina’ visit they told us that we were on the right track,” he said, referring to the visit the Spanish bishop’s conference paid to the Vatican between December and early February.

Sources from within the conference, who asked to remain anonymous since they are not authorized to speak with the media, told Crux that the bishops’ conference decided to initiate the investigation only under pressure from the government, adding it shows a lack of vision: It was evident that the newspaper El Pais, which uncovered an investigation with more than 200 cases, was closer to the Holy See than the bishops. The paper hand delivered the investigation to Pope Francis in December.