MADRID, 4 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
A dozen people summoned by associations of victims of sexual abuse in the Church demonstrated this Monday in front of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) on the occasion of the celebration of the 124th Spring Plenary Assembly in which the new president of the ecclesiastical institution.
“We always remember them, today was a different speech, but as many times as we have remembered them and we continue to remember them. We have made the protocols, this is going to help us a lot to continue working for them,” the outgoing president stated in statements to the media. of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Juan José Omella, in reference to the victims who, however, he did not mention in his speech at the inauguration of the Assembly.
For his part, Juan Cuatrecasas, founding member and spokesperson of the National Association of Stolen Childhood, has stressed in statements to Europa Press that they have gone to the headquarters of the Spanish Episcopal Conference to vindicate the rights that, in his opinion, “are “They continue to deny the victims.”
“Beyond words, we do not see concrete facts. We ask that the Episcopal Conference implement concrete measures, that includes the victims in decision-making,” Cuatrecasas stated.
The victims, as detailed, ask that free therapies to care for victims be implemented, with the collaboration of the Church and the State, since “there are many who cannot afford this expense.”
They also demand that “a fight be made” at the level of the Church and the State against the labor, student, and social exclusion of these victims of pedophilia in the ecclesiastical sphere.
“It seems essential to me that the Church protects its victims. There are many victims who have reported that, even with final convictions, they continue to receive insults, denials and threats from the pedophile and those around him,” denounced the association’s spokesperson. .
Likewise, he recalled that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, “was very clear” in the gallery of the Congress of Deputies regarding creating a compensation fund. “But we see that the Church is not collaborating, the Church is even cheating, that is why we are going to claim it and protest,” he criticized.
“We believe that the Church cannot continue acting like this, the Church has to implement a policy of zero tolerance, as Pope Francis orders, it has to open windows, shake carpets, because what it is hiding are the damages that an adult in a cassock and collars caused girls and boys in the process of forging their personalities. There cannot be things more serious than this,” concluded Cuatrecasas, who has advanced that they will continue with their protests throughout the week and hopes that the new president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference “be empathetic” with cases of abuse.
