MADRID — Spain established a reparations program for alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse, including cases involving deceased accused individuals whose crimes are past the statute of limitations. The Spanish bishops conference and the government approved the program, granting the government final authority over compensation payouts.
The program provides a one-year window for victims to submit applications. As of the reporting date, 420 individuals have applied. The national ombudsman and an independent team of experts review each case and propose compensation. The Catholic Church evaluates these proposals. If they cannot agree, a joint committee reviews the case. The ombudsman holds final decision-making authority if the committee cannot reach a consensus.
The program is not legally binding and does not use a standardized compensation scale based on abuse severity. The government stated that the church's internal compensation system lacked external oversight.
Paula Alonso-Pimentel, who alleges a Marist priest sexually abused her in Valladolid during the 1970s, addressed the financial aspect. Alonso-Pimentel said, "It must cost them, the Church. It must cost them because this cannot come for free. It cannot be that they can continue doing it without paying a huge price." After a 2019 summit, she contacted the Marist order and received only the name of the accused priest. Alonso-Pimentel said, "I'm going to submit my report no matter what, but I also want to see how they work."
Miguel Hurtado alleges that a monk sexually abused him at Montserrat Abbey outside Barcelona. Hurtado stated that representatives of the Abbey initially persuaded his parents not to report the alleged abuse. In 2023, the ombudsman published a report estimating hundreds of thousands of possible victims of church sexual abuse. This estimate was derived from a survey of 8,000 individuals.
The bishops conference rejected the ombudsman's victim estimate. The conference stated its internal investigation identified 728 sexual abusers within the church since 1945. Josetxo Vera, communications director for the bishops conference, said, "It's opening a new door for the process that the church has already been developing for the past two years."
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability, commented on the protocol. Doyle said, "I see this protocol actually as being quite fragile. It has a very short time frame. It has no matrix to establish minimum awards for various categories of injuries."