EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and did a database updated with all known cases. If you know of any cases that have not seen the light of day, you can write to us at: Abusos@elpais.es. If it is Latin America, the address is: abusesamerica@elpais.es.
───────────
The vice president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (EEC) and cardinal of Madrid, José Cobo, said on Tuesday that the investigation against the bishop of Cadiz and Ceuta, Rafael Zornoza, for child abuse is “a drama” for the Church and he trusts that the Vatican will resolve the canonical procedure “quickly”. “If the Holy See admitted it, there must be plausibility,” he told the media after the prayer breakfast organized by the Catholic Association of Propagandists (ACdP) and the San Pablo CEU Foundation in Madrid. This newspaper published exclusively on Monday that the Vatican has ordered the opening of an investigation this July against Zornoza, 76, for child abuse in the 1990s in Getafe (Madrid), while he was directing the seminary of said diocese. The Holy See intervened after the victim sent a complaint via email to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith describing the facts and asking for measures to be taken. The Rota Tribunal of the Apostolic Nunciature in Spain is now conducting the preliminary investigation. “The Holy See will do its job, we have faith in it and we will support it,” the cardinal said.
Although the Vatican and the Spanish Church were aware of the accusations and opened a case against the bishop, they did not remove him from his duties and pastoral work. For the past four months Zornoza has continued with his agenda and only suspended it when this newspaper published the story this Monday. The dioceses of Ceuta and Cadiz reject the accusations. On these issues, the Cardinal of Madrid indicated that the Tribunal de la Rota will dictate “the measures to be adopted” and clarified that the preventive investigation “will be very exhaustive and very effective”. In the CEE Zornoza is a member of the Episcopal Commission for missions and cooperation with the Churches. Previously he was President of the Episcopal Commission for the Clergy (2017-2020). The vice president of the bishops asked to respect “the presumption of innocence” of the accused.
Cobo’s statements come the day after the president of the EEC, Luis Argüello, confessed his “pain” during a conference in Las Palmas de Gran Canarias and gave “plausibility” to the complaint, but showed empathy with the accused, of whom he said that the Church wants to “get closer” to his pain and hinted that he may “have been falsely accused”.
These last words were a hard blow for the National Association of Stolen Childhoods (ANIR) of victims of clerical pedophilia. “They don’t know what pain is. Don’t talk to us about pain (…) So much pettiness, so much bad faith, so much desire to minimize, deny reality and attack their victims,” Juan Cuatrecasas, president of the entity, said in a statement, adding: “The same as always. False accusation mentioned. It forces us to respect the presumption of innocence. And, on the other hand, it drops the false accusation.”
Cuatrecasas says bishops call victims of pedophilia “crazy” and “do so without shame.” The president of ANIR also accuses Argüello of having asked for “respect for the presumption of innocence” and also “a clear opportunity to position himself on the side of the attacked, of the victim and survivor, of the violated”. Cuatrecasas concludes that “the discourse of pain and truth in Argüello’s mouth is no longer credible. The Spanish ecclesiastical hierarchy continues to be obsessed with the loss of opportunities, to hide the debris under the carpets”.
ANIR plans to meet this Tuesday afternoon with other victims’ associations with the Minister of Justice and the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, to discuss the new reparation plan for people affected by clerical abuse. Bolaños, in principle, plans to deliver the document to the bishops before next week, when the second annual plenary session of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference begins. In the last two years, the government has not taken decisive steps to keep its promise to compensate the victims of ecclesiastical pedophilia through a common fund in which the Church collaborated. The bishops have repeatedly refused to do so. This is why the Executive is trying to reach an agreement with the Spanish ecclesiastical hierarchy with this new plan.
