The writer Alejandro Palomas, victim of sexual abuse in a La Salle school during his childhood, has demanded this Thursday that an investigation commission be launched in Catalonia on pederasty in the Catholic Church. In an interview on Catalunya Ràdio, and after elDiario.es has revealed numerous victims of his own rapist, brother Jesús Linares, the novelist from Barcelona announced that he will transfer this request to the president of the Government, Pere Aragonès, at a future meeting .
More former students report abuses of the religious that Palomas denounced: “He used punishment as an excuse”
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Palomas revealed two weeks ago that during her school years, at La Salle Premià de Mar, she had suffered abuse and rape by a priest and teacher at the center. That man was Jesús Linares, who became director until his departure in 1986 and who returned to the center in 2003. Already retired, although he still taught some language classes, he took over the management of the infirmary and performed other touches on female students
Regarding his request that an investigation commission be opened, the same thing he did when he met with the president of the central government, Pedro Sánchez, Palomas has not been explicit in the format. “We have the advantage that we are the last in Europe to do so and we can see which models have worked and which have not. That would be to be intelligent”, has valued the novelist.
Currently, the only proposal in Catalonia in this sense was raised in October by the Comuns, who after seeing the result of the commission in France, which brought to light tens of thousands of victims, proposed that the Parliament open an investigation commission. According to party sources, in the coming days they hope to have sufficient support among the parliamentary groups to carry it forward.
Concentration of rejection of Premià
Parallel to the political initiatives, residents of Premià de Mar gathered this Thursday afternoon in Plaça de los Països Catalans to condemn and reject the new cases of sexual abuse in La Salle. After hanging several banners with slogans such as ‘You are not alone’, the protesters have asked to “break the silence” that surrounds this type of abuse that the church has used to “perpetuate barbarism”.
The neighbors have been “outraged” with the position of both the management of the center and the City Council to leave the case in the hands of Justice, given that several of the abuses would have prescribed. Instead, they demand political action and that the religious institution assume responsibilities.
The Councilor for Education of the Premià de Mar City Council, Elisenda Busquet, attended the rally and expressed the full support of the council for the victims of abuse. Ella Buscat has added that now it must be the Justice that clarifies the facts and repairs the damage that has been done to these people.
Busquets, who for years was head of studies at La Salle de Premià de Mar, has denied having been aware of these abuses during her time at the center and has recognized that the news has fallen like a “jug of cold water” both in the center as in the municipality. “No one who knows me can think that if he had known about these atrocities he would have silenced them,” she added.
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