REPARATION PROCEDURE FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE BY REPRESENTATIVES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN SPAIN

Abstract

Child sexual abuse committed by representatives of the Catholic Church is a historical problem in the institution. The Catalan Ombudsman created at the beginning of 2019 an independent and interdisciplinary Commission that had the mandate to respond to the needs of truth, justice and reparation of adult victims of unprosecutable cases of child sexual abuse by the Spanish Catholic Church. Through an interview with the alleged victim and the collection of complementary information from the Church we present the characteristics of the abuse, the perpetrator, the silence imposed on the victims, the psychosocial consequences and the impact on the family context, as well as the demands of reparation. The sample was composed of 13 adults (10 men and 2 women) who were between 5 and 17 years old at the time the abuses were committed. The results show what has been obtained in other previous international studies regarding the violation of the trust of the victim and their family by the perpetrator, who acted with total impunity within the institution, the serious consequences of the abuse in the victim’s development and in their family context, the maintenance of secrecy by the institution, and the need for moral reparation that the Spanish Church, in general, has neither assumed nor facilitated.