US EditionSpain: Catholic Church Signs Deal on Sexual Abuse Compensation
The agreement establishes a mixed system for reparations, including tax-free payments, for victims whose cases are time-barred or perpetrators deceased, addressing a historic moral debt.
- On January 8, 2026, Spain's government and the Catholic Church signed a Madrid accord to compensate victims whose cases are time-barred or whose alleged abusers have died.
- Pressure built following media exposés and a 2023 ombudsman report that investigations by El País and Ángel Gabilondo triggered public outcry, while Félix Bolaños and the Vatican Secretariat of State pushed talks toward the accord.
- Under the pact, victims may file initial petitions with Spain's Justice Ministry or the state ombudsman's office, which will study cases and propose tax-exempt symbolic, psychological, or economic reparations during a one-year filing window extendable by one year.
- The pact enables victims blocked by statutes or abuser deaths to seek recognition and reparations, with Félix Bolaños stating `For decades there has been silence, concealment, a moral harm often impossible to repair`, and victims' associations welcomed the agreement.
- Most crimes occurred before 1990 with 60% of aggressors now dead, while the government commission led by Ángel Gabilondo found over 200,000 minors abused and 489 compensation awards were approved in 2024.
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83 Articles
Spanish bishops will allow government to oversee compensation for sexual abuse victims
Spain’s Catholic bishops have agreed to let the Spanish government’s ombudsman have the final say in the church’s compensation of victims of sexual abuse by clergy members who have died or whose possible crimes are too old to be prosecuted.…
This agreement, obtained after years of reticence and opacity of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, provides for "the complete reparation of victims of sexual abuse within the Church" who cannot bring the matter to justice, usually because of the prescription of the file.
Spain’s bishops agree to let government ombudsman oversee compensation of sexual abuse victims
Spain’s Catholic bishops agreed Thursday to let the Spanish government’s ombudsman have the final say in the church’s compensation of victims of sexual abuse by clergy members who have died or whose possible crimes are too old to be prosecuted.
Thanks to an agreement with the government: in 2023 he admitted 900 cases of paedophilia for the first time
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