- In an investigation carried out by the UPV and three other universities have explained that both institutions have underlined their innocence in the face of the ongoing attacks. The blame has been attributed to the clergy, who have overcome the clergy' structural problems.
In the face of the sexual abuse of children perpetrated by the Catholic Church, the Spanish State and the religious organization have concealed their responsibility in this regard. They have downplayed the facts and considered them an "isolated" fact, in order to hide the intervention of the institutions, saying that the guilty are abusive. These are the results of the research started in 2018 by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and the Universitat de Barcelona (UB).
At a press conference held in Donostia-San Sebastián on 28 June 2021, representatives of the three universities have made known the most relevant findings of the research. In a hearing entitled Day on Child Sexual Abuse in Nuns: Restorative Responses from Victimology, they explained that the Spanish State and the Catholic Church have maintained their “protective character” in the face of their responsibility for child sexual abuse and have “minimized the problem” and “denied”.
The facts have been treated as “isolated” facts and responsibility has been placed in the hands of abuses, denying the intervention of the institutions. They have highlighted the "psychopathological characteristics" of people who have caused child sexual abuse, but have repressed the "structural" problems that have allowed the facts. According to the study, among them are the power of clergy, moral perfection, the way to understand sexuality, secrecy, loneliness and the idea of sin and forgiveness.
Children and adolescents who have suffered sexual abuse were people who had previously suffered "exclusion, social disadvantage or disability". The abuses were carried out by the aggressors, who usually benefited from them. In some cases, moreover, they have blamed the victims and, subsequently, have been denied the right to denounce what these institutions have done to them and to be recognised, thereby hindering them.
Pardon
In April 2021, the Catholic Church admitted a total of 220 cases of child abuse by Spanish ecclesiastics. These are just data taken since 2001.