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The Spanish Catholic Church on Sunday opened an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of more than a thousand children by members of their clergy dating back to 80 years.
The survey will be carried out by the Spanish Episcopal Conference, headed by Cardinal Juan Jose Omella, and will cover 251 priests in 31 religious orders and 31 dioceses. The death toll is estimated at around 1,237 but continues to rise, according to a three-year investigation by the El Pais newspaper.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni spoke to press about the investigation, saying the Pope had received documents about the alleged abuses and immediately forwarded them to the relevant bodies for them to proceed in accordance with current law. from the church. Current Church law states that Spanish bishops must notify civil authorities of suspected cases of sexual abuse. The Pope then also sent the documentation to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the institution that centralizes the investigation of pedophilia, where Cardinal Omega received it and began the investigation.
However, many activists said the Church was not as swift as spokesman Bruni claimed, saying they called for an independent investigation into allegations of sexual abuse in the Spanish Catholic Church since l survey in France. The Spanish Catholic Church, however, denies these claims.
The oldest currently reported suspected abuse case is 1942, and the most recent is 2018.
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