After years, we've talked about it, because it happened to all of us, or almost all of us. We are talking about the 1950s. So there was no awareness that we have today of sexual abuse.

In those early years Manuel Estomba (1916-1982) was spiritual director of the Derio Seminary – as we called the “caregiver” of our consciences and spirituality – who died a few years ago. Now we would consider him a pederasta. With the excuse of the hygiene of the genital apparatus, I would shake my hand to explain to us how we cleansed the penis. To do so, he would put us very close to us, to the left of the chair of his residence, he would unbuckle our pants, he would rip off our penis and touch us with the argument of cleanliness. At the same time, he hugged us with his left arm, squeezed his cheek against ours… How not, before he told us not to tell all that to anyone! And the truth is, we hid it for many years, each in its own way. But as time went on, some and others went on to clarify what had happened to us. We realized that the spiritual director used the same way to explain how “sexual hygiene” should be done.

Years later, this spiritual director left Derio’s seminary and became a missionary in the diocesan missions of Ecuador and Venezuela. We never knew exactly, but we imagined, what was later made known: He was transferred from Derio to Ecuador, as spiritual director, for sexual abuse of seminarian adolescents during his term of office. He ended his priestly life in the Shrine of Urkiola, where those who were in the diocesan missions of America and Africa adapted. The ecclesiastical authorities hid him and silenced him, when it would be logical to remove him from any pastoral responsibility. If he committed abuses in Derio, he could have done the same in Ecuador and Venezuela.

I remember that among us we also talked about many other issues, about the attitude that some “adults” had with certain classmates – they were few, but “chosen” for being the most beautiful or wealthy families – one of them was Don Santiago Duo. Surely there were also sexual abuses there, and on the other hand, I have no doubt that there were homosexual relations between adults and seminarians, while when this type of relationship occurred among seminarians, the bosses were against them, at least officially. If they saw two abbeys walking together, or if they left us, they accused us of being “particular friendships” and kept in the lurch.

In fact, Santiago Duo was the one who watched us the most, when he saw us walking, he said “with his hands out of pocket!”, we thought he told us that to avoid masturbating. We called “Chiefs” the prefects of discipline and the interior priests who lived with the students every day.

Many of them had a personal relationship with some of our colleagues, received preferential treatment in their office and, although they used their motorcycle or their car, they had to take the student to a “walk”, while the others followed the course of the seminar. According to the rules, we could not get him out of there except on summer and Christmas holidays.

An official survey shows this story.

What I have told you here about sexual abuse at the Derio seminar would be worthless if it were the only testimony. My testimony. The reader may ask if this is true. But what I've explained coincides with a professional and official survey, and that's something else.

The Astintze 53-70 association was created by the abbeys and professors of the Derio seminary. This name has to do with the one that had the railway station of Bilbao-Lezama, which was up to the Seminary and we habitually used to come and go.

On behalf of this association, sociologist Javier Elzo conducted a survey in 2009 among those who went through the seminar – be they ordained priests after 13 years of study. The questions aimed to get a personal view of the stay in Derio. A total of 199 people were answered (see History of the Derio-Bilbao Seminar. In the memory of its protagonists, 1953-1970. page 610-611).

I received the survey, but I didn't participate, and I think that gives more importance to what I'm doing on these pages: denouncing the sexual abuse that I suffered.

The study contains a paragraph with all references to child abuse and the answers to the questions asked about it are transcribed. They are as follows:

“A seminary priest brought me down my pants several times, on the pretext of explaining to me how to clean my penis. I know I was also talking to other colleagues, because then we talked to each other. I was between 12 and 14 years old”

(Secularized, currently about 67-70 years old)

“The sexual abuse committed by a spiritual father marked me quite a bit”

(Acting priest, now over 70 years old)

“The spiritual father was a disgraceful and we are innocent children”

(Acting priest, 63-66 years old)

“I didn’t know him, but I heard some from the small seminary that a priest made ‘touches’ to them.”

(Left the seminar in Latinos, aged 67-70)

“A spiritual father” is a zeal (or a heaven?) He calculated with great precision the ‘angle of lust’ of what appeared when we crossed our legs with our hands and gave practical advice for sexual hygiene, doing real tests.

(The seminary dropped out in her philosophy studies, she is 67-70 years old)

“Once a month he called me to his office and asked me to take out his penis, then he played with his fingers, saying he had to have it like this. What did that mean? Today I have doubts”

(Left the seminar in Latinos, aged 67-70)

“They maintained relations between professors and seminarians. I was a victim of them.”

(Left the seminar in Latinos, aged 63-66)

Professor Elzo who conducted the survey concludes as part of the sexual abuse at the seminar: “The reader has enough elements to draw his conclusions, as I do. It is clear that there were “tweaks” – which are difficult to explain – and there are responses that point to those who consider themselves victims of sexual abuse. They quote a specific person: the spiritual director.”

It is striking that those in charge of the survey do not say who the spiritual director was, although many of the respondents stated that he abused him. We do not know whether those who answered the questions mentioned their name – I suppose they did – or whether the authors of the study decided not to publish it; the Church has maintained around the world the practice of concealing such issues. I left it written in the following testimony: The spiritual director of the Latino studies at the Derio Seminary was Manuel Estomba, already dead.

[*This article is a preview of a book being prepared by Juan Mari Arrangi and included in the section 'From Sexual Abuse to Political Persecution' of that book]