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.
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Most of the priests and parishioners who have walked in the shadow of Bishop Rafael Zornoza describe him as a leader with excessive magnetism. The priest who promoted vocations in the diocese of Getafe by cornering clerics who did not share his ideas, the prelate who presented himself to the bishopric of Cadiz with the promise of financially compensating him and ended up evicting the families. And now, the first Spanish bishop investigated by the Vatican for child abuse. But who is Zornoza really?
For his friends he is a defender of the Catholic faith, an affable person with human qualities. “He is a magnificent instrument of God,” says one follower of his policies. For his opponents, a boy who pulls the strings of the dioceses he has passed through (Getafe and Cadiz) as if he were a boss. “He is a manipulator with power. If you are not by his side, he will make your life miserable. He ruined my life,” says a priest who wishes to remain anonymous, fearing that “Zornoza’s sycophants” will take revenge against him. All of them, defenders and opponents, agree on one thing about him: “Either you love him or you hate him. With Rafa there is no middle ground.”
Rafa, as his circle knows him, was born in Madrid in July 1949 into a family of six brothers from the upper middle class of Madrid. He was ordained a priest in the capital in 1975, after studying at the conciliar seminary, which he alternated with music studies begun as a child. His first assignment as a priest (with the role of vicar) would mark his ecclesiastical career: the parish of San Jorge, a recent church (built in 1973) in the Chamartín neighborhood, near the Bernabéu and directed by Francisco José Pérez y Fernández-Golfín.
Golfín will be much more than his mentor, he will become the godfather who will promote him to enter the ecclesiastical hierarchy. “It all started in the parish of San Giorgio”, says a bishop. “It was in a very rich area, with a lot of power, and Zornoza and Golfín exercised their influence on the local families,” adds the prelate. For this reason, the source describes, when Golfín was appointed bishop of Getafe in 1991, he used these contacts to build the diocese. He first took Zornoza as his secretary and appointed him rector of the seminary. This, in turn, led dozens of Chamberí boys to become seminarians. “That became a hotbed,” says a former student. This ease for the young people of that decade to enter religious life is an achievement always appreciated by the bishop now accused. “He had an attractive personality, he was very nice and people followed him. In Getafe they called him Richard Gere,” says a former student.
The accusations of abuse for which Zornoza is now under investigation date back to those years. The seminary, according to ecclesiastical sources, became his farm, in which the names of two priests accused of pedophilia also emerged: José María Carrascosa (also initiated in the parish of San Jorge) and Alberto Arrastia Cebrián. In that period, as appears on the website of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (EEC), Zornoza was involved in youth ministry, created means for the training of young people and promoted leisure activities. He was in fact the founder of the Llambrión Youth Association and the Semitic Leisure School..
Zornoza was appointed auxiliary bishop of Getafe in 2006 and five years later was promoted to lead the diocese of Cadiz and Ceuta. There, as in his previous posts, he assumed responsibility for all decisions and placed his followers in all positions of power. The official reaction of the bishopric this Monday when this newspaper published the allegations of abuse is a reflection of this. “They are false,” the diocese said in a statement. Statements that clash with the Vatican’s position of respect towards the victim and, always maintaining the presumption of innocence, appearing impartial during the investigations. When questioned this Monday on this issue, a spokesperson for the diocese was categorical: “Here the bishop is the diocese.”
The EL PAÍS news program also led to the announcement that Zornoza was suspending his schedule to help “clarify the facts” and cure “an aggressive cancer.” Cadiz remained, in fact, without a bishop. Zornoza shortly after left the fourth floor of the priest’s residence where he has lived for 14 years and 18 days headed for Madrid.
The clandestine departure for the capital, without giving any explanation and with a Cadiz church in full emotion, was diametrically opposed to his arrival in the diocese, again at midday, on October 24, 2011. That day, Zornoza put those present at the pontifical in the cathedral in his pocket by reciting some alegrie of Cadiz. Shortly before, priests and parishioners who held various pastoral responsibilities had been introduced to him.
One of those collaborators, meeting him with her usual extroverted and expansive way in dealing with him, asked herself precisely: “Wouldn’t this be a nice neoconservative“?” “It turned out he made it,” admits a priest in the present. Because, even though his fall from grace happened right now due to the pedophilia investigations, the truth is that his problems and controversies in Cadiz began as soon as he arrived.
More than 14 years after his arrival, Zornoza leaves a legacy of chiaroscuro in the diocese of Cadiz. “He was more of a manager than a pastor,” summarizes a priest from Cadiz who requests anonymity, like all the priests consulted who were encouraged to break the wall of silence that has risen in the Church of Cadiz since last Monday.
Despite Zornoza’s weakness, the fear of retaliation has permeated the dismissals of workers and evictions in just a few years (such as that of an elderly couple from San Fernando and the factory that a family had managed for decades in Cadiz) and take disciplinary measures against priests They have been a constant. “Zornoza was not a good bishop, but a good bursar, nor was he a good priest… It is a shame that this is known at the end of his ministry. We would have saved ourselves a lot of suffering”, says a former priest who left during his mandate.
The fascination of much of Cadiz with its new bishop waned just a year after his appointment. “The mistake was at the beginning, the Church of Cadiz was not respected enough. The clergy of Cadiz is known as that of the Antonios (in reference to the three previous bishops), all cut from the same human and pastoral model. “His authoritarian court didn’t fit in,” recalls the Jaen priest and former religious media director. New life, Juan Rubio.
Rubio himself has already advanced in the book The end of the Rouco era (Península, 2014) how Zornoza wasn’t even the first choice for Cadiz, but the then auxiliary bishop of Getafe ended up there to “solve some problems related to the seminary”.
The rumor that Zornoza had landed in the diocese of Cadiz to stop a ghost haunting him from his past in the Getafe seminary became recurrent among the clergy, as disenchantment with him grew. In these 14 years, one priest estimates that there are “about 30” colleagues who have changed dioceses, left after him, encouraged them to come to Cadiz or, directly, abandoned the ministry. Another priest specifies that “his mistake was not trusting the local clergy”. “This has led to quite a few priests walking away and losing faith in him. It would be unfair to say that all those who left were his fault,” adds the same person.
Those who were close to him define Zornoza as affable, extroverted and “very skilled at establishing relationships” over short distances. So much so that the bishop held periodic meetings organized by him with prominent figures from the judicial and political world of the province, whether believers or not. But the bishop revealed himself to be a different character from his clergy, especially if any of his subordinates dared to contradict him or express their disagreement. “He behaved badly with a clergy who was faithful to him, who welcomed him with affection. Before the bishop was in everything with his clergy, we went from the priestly brotherhood of Ceballos (the previous prelate) to confrontation”, says another priest.
The epitome of this impression was experienced in February 2022, when Zornoza initiated a canonical trial against his priest Rafael Vez because he had dared to express “abuses and arbitrariness” in economic management. The then parish priest of Conil de la Frontera was shocked by the 20 dismissals carried out by the bishopric, some of which ended up in the long legal disputes for inadmissibility – and in the property movements between foundations chaired by the prelate, in a management that sought resource efficiency, as defended by the diocese. “There is no doubt that the diocese functions better economically, it is healthier,” says one of the priests consulted. But other he replies this statement: “They say that the management is good, but no one knows it, it has been obscure. There is no clarity in the foundations and all those who questioned it, economically, pastorally and canonically, are being eliminated.”
This extroverted character in form and conservative in substance was also seen in the arrival of conservative educational institutions, such as the Educatio Servanda, to replace the religious congregations that were leaving and with which they also had clashes over property issues. And, as a backdrop, the criticism from his opponents became increasingly intense, while he worried about the image he was projecting. “He suffered because some criticisms were not real. But he earned the label. It seemed unfair to me to describe his entire pontificate as negative for Cadiz because it is not real, he had mistakes and successes. He is a tireless, active person, with the ability to work, but his Achilles’ heel was the care of people, of priests, which was his first responsibility”, underlines a priest.
Over the past three years, Zornoza has tried to combat all this headwind with a calmer, closer and more affable image. Meanwhile his critics moved between dismay and the hope that the Vatican would move and give him another destiny. But this never happened and on July 31, 2024 he reached the age to present his resignation in the Cadiz office. Now, with the accusation of pedophilia on his shoulders, the widespread feelings among his critics are those of “impotence and frustration”. «We expected a Church from above to give an answer and that was not the case. Haven’t Rome, the Episcopal Conference and Pope Francis discovered this? Now he is the one who is defenseless in the face of popular judgment. response to how he behaved with his clergy. He fell because of his bad arts”, underlines a critical priest.
