Spanish clergy sexual abused over 200,000 children, probe estimates

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00:00 The long-awaited report on sex abuse by the Catholic Church is out.

00:04 It claims about 200,000 minors have been victims of predatory clergymen and others affiliated

00:10 with the church.

00:11 The church declined to participate in the investigation that comes after years after

00:18 similar probes in France, in the U.S., and in Ireland, to name a few.

00:23 Sarah Morris is in Madrid.

00:26 Tell us more about the report since when, how long has this abuse been taking place?

00:35 Well the ombudsman said that some of the victims that had given evidence to his commission

00:43 went back a very long time, but he said that the bulk of the evidence received was from

00:49 the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s.

00:53 He said that he had asked for an opinion poll to be carried out and 8,000 Spaniards were

01:03 actually interviewed in that poll and 440,000 of them, if you gave the calculation of those

01:12 that said yes, they had suffered sexual abuse when they were under 18.

01:17 He said 1.13% said they had received some form of abuse from anybody involved in the

01:25 church.

01:26 And that figure works out to be 440,000 if you crunch the data.

01:32 A smaller number, the figure that you mentioned, over 200,000 mentioned that it was by a priest.

01:39 These were victims which gave terrible and devastating evidence, being abused, even raped

01:46 as young as 6, 7, 8 years old.

01:49 And the ombudsman essentially said when they later went to the church to tell their cases

01:56 and to ask for some form of justice, in many cases simply those priests or those teachers

02:03 were moved to other areas, other churches, even in other countries and they know that

02:10 abuse was able to continue.

02:12 The ombudsman called for action.

02:14 He said that now it was the role of the state, it was the role of the government and the

02:21 MPs in the parliament that set up this commission.

02:24 And he also called on the church to step up, to open its archives and to ensure that victims

02:32 were listened to and got some kind of reparations.

02:35 And Sarah, this report is coming out years after similar reports in other countries,

02:42 notably the United States, France, Ireland as well.

02:46 What took so long to get this report written and what has been the reaction to it?

02:53 Well, Mr. Gabilondo talked about the fact that there had been silence, there had not

03:00 been cooperation always from the church and he basically said that he couldn't say that

03:07 during his commission there had been absolutely no cooperation.

03:12 He said that some priests and some churches were willing to cooperate but he said others

03:18 had asked why this was all being dragged up now and he said essentially Spain was behind

03:25 all the countries that surrounded it and he said that it was time that there was some

03:31 action.

03:33 We know that there will be a meeting of the representative of the Catholic Church.

03:39 They will be meeting to discuss this report and also to be discussing a report that they

03:44 commissioned by a corporate law firm.

03:47 The corporate law firm has asked for more time to present all its conclusions.

03:52 The pressure is on the church to do something and to give those victims reparations soon.

04:00 Sarah Morris reporting live there.

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