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Church bells in Spain (symbolic image)
Photo: CESAR MANSO / AFP
According to the Catholic Church of Spain, from 728 to 1945, 2022 members sexually abused at least 927 minors in ecclesiastical institutions. "Today is not a day of complacency. We assume that members of this Church have harmed other members in all their vulnerability and innocence", said the Secretary General of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, César García Magán, on Thursday at the presentation of the ecclesial report "To bring light".
However, it is not an exhaustive figure, as the Church's contact points for those affected continue their work, the report said. "We feel pain and shame, and today is a day when we are clear about the path we still have to take to put an end to the scourge of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain," García Magán said.
The newspaper "El País" wrote that the figures now mentioned refer only to the cases of which the Church has become aware since the establishment of special reporting offices for those affected in 2019. On the question of how many cases of the Church were already known before, the bishops would remain silent. Since 2018, El País has been offering victims of sexual abuse in the country's Catholic Church the opportunity to report their case online. So far, 1957 people have made use of it.
According to the church report, 99 percent of the perpetrators are male, and almost 83 percent of the victims. Of the 728 perpetrators, 378 were clergy, the rest were members of the order without priestly ordination or lay people. Only a third of the perpetrators are still alive. 80 percent of sexual abuse cases were committed before 2000.
wit/dpa