It is now a year since the Ombudsman began to prepare the report on sexual abuse in the sphere of the Catholic Church. Since then, only a “few” dioceses have responded to requests for information to define facts and settle responsibilities, as indicated by the defender, Ángel Gabilondo, this Monday, after presenting the annual report at a press conference in the Congress of Deputies. of 2022 of the work of the institution. Gabilondo has warned that the investigation, commissioned by Congress, will be published before the end of the legislature and will find out which bishops have not collaborated. He has also indicated that the investigation regarding the deaths in the jump over the Melilla fence last June is closed and that the “differences in criteria” with the Ministry of the Interior regarding the rejection at the border continue.
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Further
The investigation of the abuses of the church is, according to Gabilondo, a work “of many years” that will not be exhausted with the legislature, but the defender wants to report on the progress before the elections. “We will give the information that we have and the information that we do not have,” he warned, in the sense of specifically pointing out those dioceses of the 70 in Spain that do not respond to requests for information. “I have no reason to doubt that the Church is going to collaborate”, he indicated. He also recalled that he met last year with both the president of the Episcopal Conference, Juan José Omella, and the secretary general, César García Magán, and that both “clearly” told him that they would not participate directly in the investigation. but they would collaborate. “It is time to demonstrate this collaboration”, he has called, although he has pointed out that, according to the information he has received, some bishops are more willing than others.
Regarding the events in Melilla, Gabilondo has insisted that he does not agree with the Interior that it is guaranteed that the rejection of migrants at the border is done individually and in accordance with the norms of international law. “I do not qualify the performance of other bodies”, he said, but he stressed that the claims on the subject of the Ombudsman are not something “exotic”. “They [por Interior] they think this is done [conforme a la ley]”, he added, although he said that he knows that in the Ministry “they have the perception that they have to improve”.
Strengthen health and public services
Gabilondo has indicated that the report is a little shorter than in previous editions, but that more files have been processed -31,452, 2,051 more than in 2021-. Among the concerns of the citizens, again health, which urgently requires a “stable agreement” to limit its deficiencies, mainly in primary care. Social security and employment, together with the Administration of Justice —significantly, due to the application of the new Civil Registry Law— account for more than a quarter of the files processed between the three categories.
The report compiles other actions raised throughout the past year of which the conclusions had already been advanced. In this sense, it is reiterated that the National Intelligence Center (CNI) acted “with respect to the provisions of the current regulations” in regard to the “alleged actions of interception of communications”, although it admits that the regulation may be out of date; The law dates from 2002, long before the existence of smartphones and their instant messaging applications, so there is room for a “reflection” on the “sufficiency or insufficiency of the existing judicial control”, which is currently limited to the intervention of a magistrate of the Supreme Court.
