Spain’s government vows to investigate Catholic Church abuse

Spain’s ruling coalition wants historic clerical sexual abuses to be investigated in the country, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has said he will first meet with abuse victims.“We’re going to talk and build,” said the head of the coalition government that rules Spain. “The human dimension of this problem is important.”

Three left-wing parties – Unidas Podemos, ERC and EH Bildu – presented a petition for the creation of a commission in Spain’s Congress to launch an investigation into the sexual abuses of minors committed within the Catholic Church.

The three parties presented the petition on Thursday, after calling these “abominable events” and saying that they consider the efforts carried out thus far by the Spanish Bishops’ Conference to be insufficient.

In a statement quoted by Europa Press, Jaume Asens, president of the parliamentary group of Unidas Podemos, explains that “these are abominable facts that not only question the victims, but also society as a civilization in the face of the refusal of the leadership of the Spanish Church to obey the Pope’s recommendations in this matter.”

He accuses the bishops of having “an obstructionist attitude” towards an independent investigation to be carried out, as has been the case in France and Germany. Seeing this attitude, he argues, the commission aims at knowing “the whole truth, to make reparations to the victims, to purge responsibilities and that this will never happen again.”