Ombudsman to have final say on some Spanish abuse payments

The Spanish government and Spain’s bishops signed paperwork on March 30 detailing how the new Church-state reparation system, which takes effect April 15, would work.

The agreement envisages a one-year window for claims, with the possibility of a 12-month extension. It is aimed at resolving disagreements between the government and Church authorities over reparations after victims criticised the Church’s original in-house compensation proposal.

Under the new agreement, victims can approach Spain’s Justice Ministry with their initial petition. The ministry will pass it on to the ombudsman, who will study it and propose a compensation package that a Church committee will then assess.

If no agreement can be reached with the Church and the victim, the case will go to a joint committee with representatives of the Church, the ombudsman’s office and victims’ associations. If that committee can’t agree, the ombudsman’s decision will stand.

Archbishop Luis Argüello, the president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, said the text of the agreement with the government will not include numerical amounts for the compensation that sexual abuse victims could receive.

Justice Minister Félix Bolaños said the system would evaluate reparations case by case, based on factors like severity, the victim’s age and the recurrence of the abuse.

“Criteria are set to arrive at fair compensation, which should not be determined by a single figure,” Mr Bolaños said.

He called the agreement a world-first, in which “the state has the final say and the Church pays the reparations due to each victim”.

He added that the framework has the Vatican’s backing and was discussed with Pope Francis during a visit by the Spanish King and Queen to the Holy See, Catalan News reported.

Archbishop Argüello said the model reflects a genuine effort by the Church to make amends, acknowledging that some victims have not felt they could trust dioceses or religious institutions in the past.

“Forgiveness requires concrete acts of reparation,” he said.

In 2023, Spain’s ombudsman delivered an 800-page report that investigated 487 known cases of sexual abuse and included a survey that calculated the number of possible victims could reach the hundreds of thousands.

Spain’s bishops rejected that estimate, saying its own investigation had uncovered 728 sexual abusers within the Church since 1945. It said that most of the crimes had occurred before 1990 and that 60 per cent of the offenders were now dead.

FULL STORY

Spanish bishops and government sign deal for compensation of church sexual abuse victims (By Suman Naishadham/Associated Press/CruxNow)

Church and Spanish government sign protocol for compensating abuse victims (EWTN News)

Spanish government and Catholic Church seal deal to compensate abuse victims (Catalan News)