Spain’s bishops have issued an apology after a report estimated that more than 200,000 minors were sexually abused by the country’s Roman Catholic clergy since 1940, AFP reports.
However, the Spanish bishops’ conference said the figures mentioned in the independent commission’s report “do not correspond to the truth”.
The document released on Friday did not give a specific number of abuse victims, but said a survey of more than 8,000 people found that 0.6 percent of Spain’s adult population said they had suffered sexual abuse by clergy as children. With a population of about 39 million people, that would amount to about 230,000 victims.
In a statement issued after an extraordinary assembly held to evaluate the report, the conference said: “The bishops present expressed their pain at the harm caused by some members of the Church through sexual abuse and reiterated their request for forgiveness from the victims.”
“Abuses committed in the Church hurt. The extrapolation made from the data obtained in the survey attached to the report is also surprising,” it is added.
“They do not correspond to the truth nor do they represent a group of priests and believers who work loyally and devotedly with their lives in the service of the kingdom,” it is added, Fena reports.
