Friday, March 29

The PSOE will endorse the first procedure to create the investigation commission of abuses in the Church


The PSOE will allow this Tuesday with its vote to qualify in the Congress Table the request of United We Can, ERC and EH Bildu to create an investigation commission on sexual abuse committed within the Spanish Catholic Church. The Socialists will thus endorse the first procedure to be able to constitute the aforementioned commission in the highest governing body of the Lower House, aligning itself with its government partner with which it has a majority in the Table and despite the foreseeable rejection of PP and Vox.

The Episcopal Conference says it will investigate abuses in the dioceses and rejects an independent commission

Know more

Sources from the socialist parliamentary group have confirmed to elDiario.es that the lawyers’ report – which the Table usually requests on all initiatives – on said investigation commission has been favorable, for which the PSOE will support qualifying the measure in the Table which meets this Tuesday. “We will do what the lawyers have marked,” these sources maintain.

United We Can and two of the main partners of the Government, ERC and EH Bildu, made last Wednesday the aforementioned joint request to create an investigation commission on “sexual assaults in childhood and adolescence by members of the Catholic Church “. The request of these three parties came just a week after the Spanish Episcopal Conference opened to investigate the abuses committed by the Spanish Church. A decision that came after the meeting that the Spanish religious leaders held with Pope Francis.

Precisely this Monday deputies from United We Can have held a meeting of about an hour with victims of abuse in the Church. At the exit, both the parliamentarians of the confederal group and those affected themselves made appeals to the PSOE, but also to other groups, to support the creation of that commission in the Lower House.

“The PSOE and the PNV must support this investigation commission,” Fernando García Salmones, a victim of abuse and spokesman for the Stolen Childhood association, has settled at the gates of Congress.

“We want to make a call, especially to the PSOE so that it takes the side of the victims and the Pope. It must choose whether it is with the victims or with the victimizers and the Episcopal Conference,” Jaume Asens, president of the Parliamentary Group, pointed out this morning. United We Can in Congress. In his opinion, in cases of abuse “declarations of goodwill are not enough.”

“Repair the damage done”

“We are obliged to act in the face of abominable events that challenge us as a society. And Congress must play the role of reparation and administration of the truth,” insisted the deputy of the confederal group. For Asens, the investigation commission requested by his group, ERC and EH Bildu seeks to “go to the end” in the investigations of the abuses committed within the Church, “repair the damage caused”, “purify responsibilities” and try of “it never happens again”.

On the part of the victims, Fernando García has branded as “opportunistic” the fact that the PNV has withdrawn from the request of an investigation commission and has asked the Government that the investigations be carried out by a group of “experts” outside Parliament . In his opinion, the fact that “a Catholic party” like that of the Basque nationalists backed the commission “would help the Church to participate” and contribute to clarifying the truth.



www.eldiario.es