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The Episcopal Conference charges against the “unusual” initiative and recovers its traditional positions against this scourge
“I don’t know if we’re exaggerating the question & rdquor ;, he said this Friday Luis Arguello. The spokesman for the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), which this week held its Plenary Assembly in Madrid, was referring to the different investigations that have been launched in recent times on the sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church: the one that the Ombudsman will direct throughout the State after the commission received from Congress, the recently approved commission in the Parliament of Catalonia and the audit that the bishops themselves have requested from the law firm Cremades & Calvo Sotelo.
Gathered for five days to study this and other questions, such as the reception of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine and the conscientious objection in the face of euthanasia and abortion, the bishops have turned the fan back on and look out in cases of pederasty. after being a exception In Europe, where this scourge has been tackled much more thoroughly, the Spanish Church launched a few months ago a different way, at least in theory, by entrusting an independent investigation to the firm and ensuring, as the chairman of the bishops did, Juan Jose Omela, that a “new stage” was opening, marked by the intention of being “close to the victims.” Now, on the other hand, the prelates have recovered their traditional positions, based on minimizing abuses in the clergy and portraying themselves in part as victims.
With a very different tone from the one Omella usually uses, who always asks for “sorry & rdquor; to the victims, Argüello presented the Church as a “scapegoat” within a global phenomenon, that of pederasty, in which cases in the Catholic sphere are, he assured, a minority. In front of Omella, which at the beginning of April opened the door for the EEC participate as a member in the commission of the Ombudsman (“we want to know first how it will be organized and what methodology it will use”, said the archbishop of Barcelona in an interview with ‘El País’), the spokesman for the bishops made it clear that a step of this type it’s not on the table.
firm rejection
The body approved by Congress with the support of all groups except Vox, whose conformation goes with delay and it is not expected for a few weeks, it supposes a “unusual decision & rdquor ;, since it will investigate only the abuses committed “by a sector of the population & rdquor ;, said Argüello, auxiliary bishop of Valladolid.
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“We have stated from the beginning that we were not going to be part of that commission –continued the spokesman, in clear contradiction with Omella’s words. We want to state that it seems to us that carrying out an investigation into abuses only in the Church, when of the 15,000 procedures opened by the Prosecutor’s Office only 68 refer to the Church, is a surprising decision & rdquor ;. That yes, the Spanish Church, made clear its spokesman, will collaborate with the commission and will open the diocesan Archives, although “it is overvalued & rdquor; what can be found in those documents.
Given the different initiatives to clarify the abuses, Argüello concluded: “I don’t know if we are exaggerating the issue and opening the possibility of revictimize to the victims, who may be called by the different organizations. We must make a call to collaboration and prudence & rdquor ;.