BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain's government and the country's Catholic bishops agreed Thursday to a joint plan to pay compensation to victims of sexual abuse by clerics who died or whose possible crimes were banned.
The agreement aims to resolve differences between the left-wing government and church authorities over reparations for victims of violence in the once staunchly Catholic country, which has undergone secularization in recent decades.
Spain's bishops-led conference said in a statement that the new agreement will allow victims who do not want to seek help directly from the church to turn to the government and the state ombudsman, who has taken a leading role in shining a light on abuses.
Spanish Justice Minister Felix Bolaños told a news conference in Madrid that “hundreds” of victims whose abusers have died or become very old could finally have their abuses acknowledged and receive economic compensation paid by the church.
“Today we paid the debt to the victims,” Bolaños said. “It is true that the state acted late, but we are acting now. Yesterday, the victims could not do anything because these crimes were prohibited.”
The hard way to a deal
It is only in the last decade that Spain has begun to confront the problem of sexual abuse by clergy and other church members, mainly due to initial reports by the newspaper El País.
In 2023, Spain's ombudsman released a damning 800-page report that investigated 487 known cases of sexual abuse and included research that suggested the number of possible victims could be in the hundreds of thousands.
Spain's bishops have strongly rejected the ombudsman's assessment, saying their own investigation has identified 728 sexual abusers within the church since 1945. It says most of the crimes occurred before 1990 and that 60% of the perpetrators are now dead.
In 2024, the government announced its intention to force the church to pay compensation to victims. Months later, the bishops said they were creating a special committee that would listen to the views of victims, evaluate their grievances and provide them with “economic, spiritual and psychological” reparation.
But victims' groups were critical of the bishops' plan because it relied on their appeal to the church and had no outside oversight.
The Ombudsman has the final say
On Thursday, Archbishop Luis Arguello, president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, acknowledged that some victims did not feel comfortable approaching church offices.
Now victims can turn to the government instead.
Under the new agreement, victims can submit their initial petition to the Spanish Ministry of Justice. The ministry will refer it to the ombudsman, who will examine it and propose a compensation package, which will then be assessed by a church committee. If an agreement cannot be reached with the church and the victim, the case will be referred to a joint commission involving representatives of the church, the ombudsman's office and victims' associations. If that committee cannot reach an agreement, the ombudsman's decision will stand, Bolaños said.
The claim window will remain open for one year. According to Bolaños, after that, if necessary, the agreement can be extended for another year.
In addition to victims' groups and Spanish bishops, Bolaños thanked the late Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV for exposing abuses in the church.
Arguello said the church had already paid 2 million euros ($2.3 million) in compensation after considering petitions from more than a hundred victims since its special committee opened in 2024.
Under the new agreement, payments to victims will be tax-free.
Compensation programs vary around the world
Only a few countries have initiated government or parliamentary investigations into clergy sexual abuse, although some independent groups have conducted their own investigations.
The issue of compensation for victims of abuse has long been a concern for the church, with wide variations in programs and payments around the world. In the United States, where an abuse scandal erupted in 2002, lawsuits, settlements and compensation programs for abuse have cost the church billions of dollars and forced several dioceses to seek bankruptcy protection.
In other countries, church compensation programs pay smaller amounts to victims and combine financial compensation with services offering therapy and spiritual care. The French church, for example, paid out an average of about 35,000 euros ($41,000) to each of the 358 victims whose claims were received in 2023. In 2024, compensation was approved for a further 489 people, 88 of whom received claims for the maximum amount of 60,000 euros ($70,000), the church said.
The Vatican's Advisory Council for the Protection of Children said in a report last year that the Catholic Church has a moral obligation to help victims heal, and that financial compensation for victims as well as tougher sanctions for abusers and their accomplices are important remedies.
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AP writer Nicole Winfield contributed to this report from Rome.
