BARCELONA – It was 2002 when the Boston Globe’s exposé blew the lid off the clerical sex abuse crisis and led to enormous public outcry, particularly in the English-speaking world.
Yet in Spain, it wasn’t until 2018 when El País started compiling a database of sex abuse cases in the country, also later turning its attention to Latin America.
This eventually led to Spain’s ombudsman, Angel Gabilondo, being tasked with investigating the problem and producing a scathing report in 2023.
Thus, Spain’s institutional reckoning with the abuse crisis didn’t properly take place until over two decades after it first erupted in the US, and subsequently spread across the rest of the Anglo world.
There are many survivors in the Hispanic world who say that far more needs to be done and that the pace has been too slow. José de Jesús Barba Martín, a victim of abuse from the notorious Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of the Legion of Christ, recently said to Reuters that it “will take a long time, and the issue will not be addressed under this pope nor the next.”
Pope Leo XIV, who was born in the United States and is a naturalized citizen of Peru, has a unique perspective on the crisis that is underway in both regions.
Leo is currently on a visit to Latin America, and while in Argentina he met with five victims of clerical abuse for more than an hour.
The Vatican said Leo “spoke individually with each of them,” listening to “their words, their painful stories, and their proposals for strengthening paths to healing within the Church.”
Similarly, when Leo was in Madrid in June, he met with six victims of clerical sex abuse for nearly an hour.
Gabilondo’s nearly 800-page report suggested as many as 200,000 childhood clerical sexual abuse victims since 1940.
The 200,000 figure is an extrapolation from a survey of about 8,000 people, not an actual victim count.
The Spanish bishops rejected the findings, saying that their own investigations – which preceded Gabilondo’s independent investigation – had found 728 alleged abusers in the Church since 1945, and that most of the crimes were committed before 1990.
Cardinal Juan José Omella of Barcelona, then president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, flatly called the figures “a lie” and said they were “meant to trick [people].”
In 2024, the bishops announced an assistance scheme for victims on a case-by-case basis, a few months after the Spanish government had said it intended to force the church to compensate victims.
This year, the Church and the government signed an agreement to compensate victims of clerical sex abuse. Victims will send their claims to the ombudsman, who will then propose a compensation amount to the church.
If no agreement can be reached, the ombudsman will ultimately decide.
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Spanish Church officials said they have given 2 million euros ($2.3 million) to victims so far.
In contrast, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, the Catholic Church in the US has spent more than $5 billion on clergy sex abuse allegations and payouts.
The Spanish Church has also resisted claims abuse is a systemic issue.
“We believe that, indeed, human nature is flawed,” said Josetxo Vera, former communications director for the bishops’ conference, “that it has a propensity for evil, and that it needs a great deal of reconciliation and forgiveness.”
“But,” reported the AP, “I can’t say that it’s a systemic issue.”
“We are part of this society,” Vera also said, “we share some of its virtues, and we also share some of its vices and crimes.”
In April, Vera also wrote an article in El Mundo, disputing some of the claims made by the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes of Government of Spain, Félix Bolaños.
In the article, he questioned, amongst other things, the idea that the Church had not taken victims seriously until the agreements with the government had been made.
Latin America
The Child Rights International Network (CRIN) said awareness of the crisis in Latin America has grown in recent years, but that “the region has not seen the same level of systemic accountability or legal reform to ensure justice for survivors as we’ve seen elsewhere in the world.”
It pinpointed a lack of political will from national governments and a lack of mobilization of survivor-led movements.
However, CRIN highlighted that six countries — Nicaragua, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Colombia — have removed criminal limitation periods for childhood sexual abuse.
Ahead of Leo’s trip to Latin America, Angela Walker, Executive Director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) spoke out.
“The pope has a responsibility to see that credibly accused clerics are removed from ministry,” she said. “Clerical sexual abuse is a crime, and survivors deserve long-awaited justice in Latin America especially.”
With cases pending in countries such as Peru, Argentina and Uruguay, Walker emphasized that for “far too long, cases of reported abuse have been hidden by the Church’s hierarchy, and survivors are further harmed by these betrayals.”
“The pope must make justice for survivors a top priority so that they can begin to heal from the terrible trauma that they have suffered,” she added.
The case of Maciel is a damning example of Church failure. Since the 1990s, complaints were raised with the Vatican that went unanswered.
The Vatican removed Maciel from ministry in 2006 and sentenced him to a life of prayer and penitence, but allowed his Legion of Christ to continue in existence after a review and reform of its statutes and senior leadership.
A report from the Legion itself in 2019 found that Maciel had abused at least 60 minors. The order documented 175 instances of child abuse involving 33 priests over eight decades.
Maciel was a Mexican who received enormous amounts of funding from the US. He had a foot in both worlds.
Back in 2018, German Jesuit priest Hans Zollner, an expert in safeguarding and sexual abuse who used to work at Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, said Latin America was one of the regions where abuse is not taken seriously enough.
“In large parts of Africa and Asia, and to some degree Latin America, and parts of Eastern Europe, the sexual abuse of children is still not perceived as an urgent and recurrent problem,” he wrote.
With his decades of experience working in Peru, Leo will be wanting to ensure that has changed.
The pope has shown a willingness to engage and listen to survivors during all of his recent trips, including France, Spain and now Latin America.
Yet, his recent comments in his flight home from France saying that sexual abuse is “first and foremost a human problem” have caused considerable consternation.
RELATED: German bishop challenges pope’s comments on systemic abuse in the Church
German bishop Georg Bätzing, the former president of the German bishops’ conference, published a statement last week saying it “would be a serious setback,” should “the Church downplay or deny the systemic causes of sexualized violence.”
The sexual abuse crisis affects all the Church and there is still a lot to do. Leo, with his long experience in Peru, will be watching closely the Spanish-speaking world, and particularly Latin America, as the Church there attempts to eradicate the scourge.
Follow Fionn Shiner on X: @FionnShiner92
