Spanish bishops admit there have been over 900 victims of child abuse since 1945

The Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) has admitted that 927 minors were abused by church members between 1945 and 2022. 

The institution has made available data that shows 728 members of the Catholic Church in Spain have been accused of child abuse between those years. 

This is the first official document the Spanish Church has ever published on paedophilia cases. 

“We are ashamed and today we are aware of the road ahead in terms of ending the scourge of sexual abuse within the Spanish Catholic Church,” CEE Secretary Francisco Garcia said. 

These numbers only correspond to those received by the child protection offices of the dioceses, established in 2019. 

Therefore, this data does not include the cases known to the Church prior to that year, information that continues to withhold from the public. 

The document does not also gather all cases received through other channels, such an El Pais investigation exposing the abuses of 503 clergymen, of which only 191 are under investigation. 

The CEE admitted to the media in 2021 they had received 202 complaints against priests since 2001. 

In March last year, the religious institution increased the number to 506. 

Around a year later, they confirm there are more than 700. 

However, lawyers working in the audit that the EEC commissioned to investigate the abuses calculate ‘thousands’ of victims will be discovered. 

It has been reported that the majority of the abuses (47%) took place in schools and that 80% of them occurred before 1990. 

Additionally, the documents show that over 60% of the accused are already dead. 

The EEC has still not made public information about the economic compensations to the victims.