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Between Madrid and Barcelona, he staged yesterday that the consensus on the formula to investigate abuses within the Catholic Church is far from being reached. If last week it was Stolen Childhood, linked to the PSOE deputy Juan Cuatrecasas, which communicated to the president of the Episcopal Conference his confidence in the Ombudsman Commission and his refusal to collaborate with Cremades & Calvo Sotelo —the office to which the Church has commissioned its audit—yesterday several victims of Catalonia, through the Tolerance 0 Platform, joined this rejection, but also added their refusal to collaborate with Ángel Gabilondo.
A disapproval both privately, for having a "conflict of interest having been a teacher in two schools at the same time that abuses were taking place", and institutional, considering that the commission lacks the coercive capacity to force all parties. to go
There, in Madrid, the auditorium commissioned by the Church took its first steps with the meeting of Javier Cremades with those in charge of the 202 diocesan offices and congregations for the prevention of abuse, with the aim of establishing the criteria for collaboration.
Truth commission
The proposal of the 'Zero Tolerance' Platform went through the creation of a truth commission on abuses. First in the Catalan sphere, but later it could serve as a model to implement it at the state level. The objective would not only be to develop a database on abusers and accessories, as well as the institutions where the abuses have been perpetrated, but "to prevent it from happening again."
The truth commission that they claim from the platform would be made up of private hearings, with the active search for cases so that the victims can report what happened confidentially and privately, but leaving an "official record" of it. Also public hearings, in which I call survivors and those responsible for the pertinent institutions to appear to find out how they responded. Appearances, these yes, open to the media and broadcast by 'streaming'. And a third point, the "exhaustive" investigation sur the canonical archives to document the internal investigations of the Catholic hierarchy in the cases of pederasty.
The proposal was based on the legal document prepared by Miguel Hurtado, abused in the abbey of Montserrat, which was presented to Congress, but only ERC, Bildu and United We Can vote. The PSOE unchecked and supported the proposal of the Ombudsman.
However, despite the plan of these associations, the office of Cremades & Calvo Sotelo advanced yesterday in the order of the Conference and met with the offices that the Church created in 2020 to collect the complaints. A first step that will be completed with the public presentation, next Wednesday, of the members of the work team and its methodology.
More than 500 complaints
At the moment, it will be based on the 506 complaints that the Church acknowledges having received in these offices and the twenty that the office has compiled through email. It remains to be resolved how the cases in which the victims refuse to collaborate with Cremades will be addressed, although sources close to the episcopate have confirmed that the presidency is looking for alternative formulas.
This will be, with all certainty, one of the issues that the leadership of the Conference will discuss next Wednesday with Pope Francis in a meeting that they will hold in the Vatican. The meeting, requested by Omella a few days ago, will also be attended by Secretary Luis Argüello and Vice President Carlos Osoro, who joined at the last minute.
With the meeting, Omella tries to reach the plenary session of the Episcopal Conference, which will meet at the end of the month, with a firm proposal. Although yesterday the Church reaffirmed its willingness to "collaborate with any initiative that seeks the truth" on the issue of abuse, the truth is that some bishops have planted their reluctance to investigate Angel Gabilondo. Omella seeks, in the authority of the Pope, the key to put an end to discrepancies.
