At the beginning of June, the Spanish Catholic Church released a report on the abuse of children by the church. The report identified 728 alleged abusers and 927 victims of abuse, all since the 1940s.
While the report is an admission of culpability, it is a very weak one.
Many abusers abuse many children. The likelihood that less than 1000 Spanish children were abused by 728 abusers is virtually nil.
Likewise, the figure of 728 abusers over 70 years in a country of many millions that is estimated to be 95% catholic is improbably low.
At issue is the fact that the investigation was carried out by the Church itself, the immensely wealthy and powerful global network to which the abusers belonged, the organisation that prioritised its own reputation above the safety of children.
By way of comparison, in 2021 an independent French investigation published a report that estimated at least 330,000 French children had been victims of clergy and church workers in the previous 70 years.
François Devaux of the French victims’ association, told church representatives at the presentation of the report: “You must pay for all these crimes,” adding, “You are a disgrace to our humanity,” reported The Guardian.
The priest who abused Devaux was convicted in 2020 for the sexual abuse of children. He admitted to the abuse of more than 75 boys.
There is no evidence that transparency is now more important to the church than damage control. What has changed is that damage control looks different in the 2020’s than it did in the 1990s
Not A Beach Read
Ghosts of the Orphanage received another generous review last week, this time from the Rutland Herald. I love it when reviews are written by journalists. I know they read the book on a number of levels. They understand, because they’ve been there. They recognise the pain, because they have felt it.
Tom Walsh wrote “…she has, discovering along the way that, as a relentless investigative reporter, the more you find, the more there is to find, and the more you know, the more there is to know. It’s an occupational hazard that persists until you stop.“
Walsh called the book “a hard, important read,” more here.
