DEMANDS for full disclosure of documents relating to church child abuse look unlikely to be met.

The Spanish Ministry of Justice has requested files from the Episcopal Conference nack in February.

-- Advertisement --



The ministry called for “all the information to its credit on investigations or internal procedures for complaints of aggressions and sexual abuses in ecclesiastical institutions”.

However, the justice department, headed by Dolores Delgado, is still waiting for the information to be brought forward, and according to the department, it is unlikely that it will ever be.

The request included two clauses, the first is that the Church stop sifting through the reports or suspicions that they encounter and immediately pass them on to the authorities.

The second is that their schools adopt the anti-abuse protocols that already exist in public schools.

A spokesperson from the clergy, Luis Argüello, responded to the request stating that they received the request for information in February, but said that neither the Ministry nor the Conference can have the data that “in this case, belongs to the Religious Congregations.”

Argüello went on to suggest that the Ministry needs to look passed the Church and understand the full scale of the institutionalised abuse problem.

“The gravity of the abuses means that society as a whole is called to reflect on their causes and the means to prevent them, to prevent them, to denounce them and to attend to all the victims.

“The Church has already taken very important steps and wants to continue to do so, in collaboration with the institutions involved. Surely we can offer our experience to help other institutions and learn from the steps taken by others.”