The office that investigates abuses in the Church has already received fifty complaints, the majority of unknown cases

The firm

has received almost fifty complaints of sexual abuse within the

in its first six weeks of work.

About thirty correspond to cases that were not known.

This was explained this Wednesday by its president, Javier Cremades, who has announced the working group of 28 people who must present their conclusions within a little less than 11 months, when one year has passed since the commission received from the Spanish Episcopal Conference .

The team will also include other special collaborators, including the former Vice President of the Constitutional Court

and the former Mayor of Madrid

.

A dozen of the members of the group are foreigners.

Among them are the coordinator of the equivalent work that is being carried out in Portugal and a member of the German office, co-author of five reports on sexual abuse in the religious sphere in that country.

Also the lawyer who took the most mediatic case in Argentina, that of the priest Julios Grassi, and who in his work met with Pope Francis, then Cardinal Bergoglio.

years late

Cremades explained that this type of international collaboration is especially necessary because the experience they bring will speed up work in which Spain is "years behind" compared to other countries.

"We arrived 20 years after the US, 13 after Germany, one after Portugal and four after France. We don't have time to do it wrong," he said.

He added that the work is underway and that lawyers from the firm have already held numerous interviews with "victims."

One of the tasks that the team has addressed is precisely what terms are going to be used among the several that have been used: if victim, affected, offended or survivor.

The most common victim is rejected by many of them.

The team meetings have reached several associations, which according to Cremades have been satisfied with the meetings.

The exception is Infancia Libre, which has shown its misgivings about the commission from the Episcopal Conference.

Access to all data

Cremades has also explained that he has met in recent weeks with three bishops and that he has the commitment of the Church to allow him access to all his data on the matter.

This, however, has not yet been verified, since information has only recently begun to be requested.

The lawyer has indicated that the episcopal conference itself is collecting information that the dioceses are still sending it.

These data would still lack others, such as those from congregations.

"In the current haze it is not yet possible to give data, but the work is being done and will be finished. I hope that in 11 months we will have a complex map, which will not be simple but it will be complete", added Cremades, whose research coincides with the one entrusted by Congress to the Ombudsman and even with the global review of this type of abuse that the State Attorney General's Office has undertaken.

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