（2022.2.2 Crux Rome Bureau Chief Inés San Martín）
スペインの司教協議会（CEE）が、過去の聖職者による性的虐待について独立委員会を設けて調査することを拒否したのを受けて、スペイン政府は2日、同国議会に、同問題に関する調査委員会の設置などの法案を提出することに決めた。
ペドロ・サンチェス首相が率いる左翼政府は、カトリック教会内部における未成年者に対する性的虐待問題の解明に、政府が積極的な役割を果たす方針をすでに決めている。
今回の決定は、連立政権の与党による要請にもとずいて行われたが、政府のイサベル・ロドリゲス報道官は1日の記者会見で「政府は、性的虐待の被害者の側に立って、実態を解明し、被害者をケアする適切な仕組みを検討中」とし、調査委員会の設置と被害者への手当てなどを含めた法案を、議会に近く提出する、と述べた。法案提出は2月17日以降となる見込みだが、現地メディアの多くは、法案が提出されれば、必ず成立する、と見ている。
また、こうした動きと並行して、社会党員の元閣僚がトップを務める検察庁も、この問題について手続きを開始。同国の17の自治州の全ての上級検察官に対して、宗教施設内でなされた性的暴行と未成年者に対する性的虐待に関する苦情案件と訴訟案件すべてを、今後10日以内に検察庁に報告するよう求めている。
以下、英語原文に続く
The Spanish bishops have refused to launch the investigation – which has been commissioned by other national bishops’ conferences, such as Portugal, France and Germany – on the grounds that every diocese in the country is already compiling this information.
Furthermore, some bishops have argued collecting all the data in one report instead of actually investigating allegations, does not help victims. What they propose, instead, is to focus attention and resources to listening and accompanying victims, inviting them to come forward with allegations either to Church or civil authorities.
The left-wing People’s Party voted against the Commission when the proposal was debated on Tuesday because they wanted to broaden the scope of the study to look into cases of sexual abuse against children than might have occurred in other settings, including public schools.
According to the Center for Decease Control, one in four girls and one in thirteen boys experience child sexual abuse before turning 18, and in 91 percent of the cases, the abuser is known by the child or the family, with an estimated 60 percent of the cases taking place within the family.
The request for a government commission comes after an investigation carried out by El Pais, a left-wing national newspaper aligned with the government. Their report was handed to Pope Francis in December. According to the newspaper, the investigation is “unprecedented” for the Church in Spain. It includes allegations of child sexual abuse made against 251 members of the clergy and some lay people from religious institutions. The investigation was opened in October, 2018.
At least nine dioceses, and most religious orders named in the report, have asked the newspaper for help in contacting the survivors who are willing to make the allegations to authorities.
Sources have told Crux that one of the reasons why the bishops have refused to do a historic investigation is because they are convinced the government, through the newspaper, has targeted them and launching a commission would be “caving in.”
Other prelates, however, argue that they have followed suit with every request made by the Holy See. They claim that during their ad limina visits to Rome – held between December and January – Pope Francis, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for Bishops expressed satisfaction with the steps taken to investigate allegations, accompany victims and prevent abuse.
“It is true that the Church in Spain has made mistakes,” a source from within the bishops conference told Crux. “But to go from ‘we didn’t do everything right’ to accusing us of ‘doing absolutely nothing’ is flat out a lie.”
The bishops’ conference hasn’t issued a statement about the proposed commission, and only one bishop – Luis Argüello, secretary general 
of CEE and auxiliary of Valladolid – has spoken about it.
During an interview with Vatican Media following the ad limina visit, he expressed concerns about the proposal.
“We are also witnessing a use of this situation: A media use, a political use in these last hours and that worries us,” Argüello said. “Not only because it affects the life of the Church and without addressing the problem of abuse in society as a whole. Above all, because it seems to us especially painful that the situation of the victims could be used as a political dispute, in the confrontation of the Parliament or of the Spanish social and political life.”
Spaniard Yago De la Cierva, a layman member of Opus Dei who was part of the consulting team of the Vatican’s 2019 summit on clerical abuse, told Crux that the situation in Spain is particular because it is a newspaper, not the bishops, that has taken the initiative to do what the Holy See demanded at the end of that meeting.
“The Vatican said it should be the bishops who investigate and take lead on this matter, because no one is more interested in guaranteeing safe spaces in ecclesial contexts,” he said. “Hence, the paradox of the situation: A left wing newspaper, and a Socialist-Communist government, are more interested in carrying out an investigation than the bishops’ conference.”
“It is not that the bishops are doing it all wrong. We just don’t know what they are doing,” he added.
This, De la Cierva argued, has left the lay faithful in a “worrying situation of abandonment,” seeing on the one hand the aggressiveness of El Pais, and on the other, no response from the bishops.
“These issues are impossible to avoid in the public square, and the less upfront the bishops are in addressing this social scourge, the worse it is going to be,” he said.
Furthermore, if they are not responsible for cleaning their own house, then they will have no credibility in addressing the problem in the larger society.
Since each country is different, he said, the regulations of the Holy See are applied differently. But at the end of the summit of presidents of bishops’ conferences in Rome, the Holy See asked the prelates to investigate abuse allegations, to go looking for survivors and make reparations. If the Spanish bishops can guarantee that this happens at the diocesan level, “perhaps there is no need for an investigation at the national level.”
“But public opinion is not divided by diocese, and it is very difficult for each diocese to do the same thing, with the same spirit, methodology and dedication, as the diocese next door,” De la Cierva said. “For this reason, episcopal conferences around the world have decided to provide a service to the particular dioceses so that there is a systematization.”
Yet he said the Spanish bishops are very jealous of their dioceses, and they doubt the bishops’ conference could do a better job.
De la Cierva said he fears this means the Spanish Church could fall by the wayside in tackling abuse in a systematic mannter.
、“There is no injustice worse than comparative injustice. It makes no sense to treat an abused person in Madrid worse than one from Huelva or one abused by a Marist. Because neither the faithful nor society accept this difference,” he said.
（翻訳「カトリック・あい」南條俊二）
・・Cruxは、カトリック専門のニュース、分析、評論を網羅する米国のインターネット・メディアです。 2014年9月に米国の主要日刊紙の一つである「ボストン・グローブ」 （欧米を中心にした聖職者による幼児性的虐待事件摘発のきっかけとなった世界的なスクープで有名。映画化され、日本でも全国上映された）の報道活動の一環として創刊されました。現在は、米国に本拠を置くカトリック団体とパートナーシップを組み、多くのカトリック関係団体、機関、個人の支援を受けて、バチカンを含め，どこからも干渉を受けない、独立系カトリック・メディアとして世界的に高い評価を受けています。「カトリック・あい」は、カトリック専門の非営利メディアとして、Cruxが発信するニュース、分析、評論の日本語への翻訳、転載について了解を得て、掲載しています。
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