Justice has rejected the lawsuit with which the Archbishop of Barcelona, Joan Josep Omella, accused a victim of pedophilia of threats. The victim had reproached him for his "inaction in reporting" ex officio the abuses he had suffered by a priest and which he himself had communicated to him in previous meetings. Up to four judges have concluded that the young man's claims do not constitute a crime of threats, as Omella had argued.

With his unusual address to the Congress of Deputies, Leo XIV, or Robert Prevost, personified one of those paradoxes that define our times: that a supposedly infallible religious leader, who even allows himself to speak out against rights as fragile and evidently noble as euthanasia or abortion, can at the same time be a better defender of democracy than many of the elected representatives who applauded him with the same cynicism with which they carry out their lamentable daily work. The current Pope of Rome said valuable words in Congress, he has said them at different times during his trip to the country called Madrid, and it is foreseeable that he will continue to say them during his stay in Barcelona. Furthermore, he has just published an encyclical in which he positions himself on an issue—abuses of power in the age of artificial intelligence—that will literally determine the future of the world: Leo XIV has not wanted to shirk the duty of speaking out on it, and he has done so with a speech that challenges the powerful far-right groups in the West. That in Spain, and in Catalonia, some solemn patriots call him a woke pope, or a sanchista pope or (these days we will hear it) a Spanish nationalist pope also indicates that he is not mistaken. In Madrid, Leo XIV received enthusiastic and uncritical mass adoration, because it is a city accustomed to living under the customs and ways of Spanish nationalism, and this predisposes favorably towards any pontiff, even if he is progressive. In Barcelona he will find more opposition, but not so much—unfortunately—as a result of the city's progressive tradition, but as a consequence of the patriotic and essentialist mess that pollutes the Catalan public debate and which, precisely, advances by leaps and bounds this far-right against which Prevost positions himself.

Pope Leo XIV delivered this Monday in the Congress of Deputies a speech that contains the main message of his visit to Spain, where, as a reminder, in addition to Madrid and Catalonia, he plans to visit the Canary Islands. This message has to do with the drama of immigration and how governments and societies manage it, and it is based on a fundamental principle: the defense of human dignity. "Many men, women, and children are forced, by circumstances often dramatic, to abandon their communities and leave behind their loved ones, stories, and ties. This reality transcends any purely demographic or economic reading: it constitutes an eminently moral and legal issue. Wherever a person is discriminated against because of their national, ethnic, religious, or linguistic origin, or because of their economic or social status, the universal principle of the equal dignity of all human beings is gravely violated," stated the Holy Father.

At the headquarters of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, in front of all the bishops, who were wearing the zucchetto, Pope Leo XIV called this Monday for decisive action against the "pederasty" perpetrated by priests and religious of the Catholic Church: "Justice and reparation," he summarized. The pontiff defended a zero-tolerance policy against what he described as a "plague." "The ecclesial community is called to respond with listening, truth, justice, reparation, and an ever more determined commitment to prevention and a culture of care," he insisted. In this regard, the Pope also admitted that "hurt people must be able to find sincere listening, warmth, protection, and real paths to healing.

She doesn't know if it was a smell, the feeling of coldness of body and spirit, but on January 24, 2014, Marta Plujà says she almost had to die to be reborn. That day she suffered a stroke that helped her, definitively, to “wake up” and “break the silence” that she had carried since she was very young without even knowing it. She also doesn't know when the sexual assaults and rapes by a relative began or ended. She calculates it based on the aggressor's biography, who is 10 years older and was already of legal age. “I would have been 9, 10, 11 years old,” she says.

From April 15, those who have suffered sexual abuse in the past by members of the Catholic Church or in any other religious sphere will be able to opt for reparation overseen by the Ombudsman. Despite the system's imperfections, which do not include some of the victims' demands, yesterday's signing of the protocol should be read as a new success for this victims' movement that, for some years now, has managed to have the damage recognized and responsibilities accepted. The protocol establishes how people who until now could not go to justice because their case had expired or because the abuser had already died will be able to opt for reparation. And, most importantly, the arbiter will not be the same ecclesiastical institution within which the abuses were committed, and which has systematically denied or minimized them until very recently, but rather it will be the state, through the figure of the Ombudsman, that will act as arbiter and will ultimately decide what the restoration should consist of, which will largely be economic.

The Spanish government, the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), and the Spanish Conference of Religious have signed this Monday, at the Ombudsman's office, the protocol to compensate victims of sexual abuse and pedophilia. It is the system to recognize and repair individuals for whom the judicial route is no longer possible and which had been pending detailing since early January, when a more generic pact was reached to implement it. Finally, no indicative compensation figure has been included in the text.

TV3 premiered on Tuesday a new installment of La fugida, the documentary series that collects the investigative work of journalist Guillem Sánchez on sexual abuse committed in religious environments. In 2024 we saw a first season. But each broadcast calls on new victims and, therefore, other aggressors are also denounced. This time, the three new episodes (which you will find on the 3Cat platform) focused on cases linked to the Escolapis and the Escola Pare Manyanet in Barcelona.As always, the victims' stories are devastating, and even more so when the impunity of the abusers and the complicity of the institutions that protect them are flagrant. The Escape. Hidden Truths provokes deep indignation.The investigative work is impeccable: it listens to and protects victims and seeks accredited voices that lend solidity to their account. Perhaps the need to recreate scenes that allude directly to episodes of abuse is what grinds a little. Despite the prudence of these brief fictions, they incorporate a morbid element that makes it inevitable to consider what the objective of the dramatizations is and whether there is a real need to include them. Having to recreate a priest putting a child on his lap might be too much.Guillem Sánchez manages to speak with some of the aggressors. The scene in which he intercepts the religious man Josep Blay leaving a school after the Escolapis have denied their proximity to minors is particularly striking. He also has a conversation with the missionary Manel Sales on a bus. The pretexts of dead musk, the evasions, the lack of memory, and the paternalistic arguments of the aggressors are disgusting. But surely they are only the rudimentary and clumsy version of a rhetoric and cynicism that end up being representative of their religious communities.And here is where we enter the most scandalous part denounced by Guillem Sánchez. Both Jordi Vilà, provincial of the Escolapios, and Borja Aitor Arriaga, spokesperson for Escola Pare Manyanet, are exposed in the documentary. They make a resounding ridicule. When it is said that shame must change sides, it is obvious that it must not only fall on the abusers, but on all those who try to protect them through a discourse full of confusions, imprecisions, and misleading arguments. Both had to rectify statements made in front of the cameras afterwards. Vilà and Arriaga have been discredited as journalistic sources with their pathetic role. The story of the Pare Manyanet IT technician is essential to understanding the strategies of these religious institutions.On the other hand, perhaps we should stop using the ecclesiastical jargon of "father", "brother", and "community" to refer to abusers in documentaries about sexual abuse by the Church, and call them by their first and last names, without euphemisms. Because religious terms symbolically frame these people and institutions in a sphere that seems parallel to that of civil society, even more distant or elevated. And, after all, before justice they are like any of us. Even if they don't think so.

"He has a teacher for you to teach you to speak Russian. She's 2x8 years old and not blonde. The lessons are free, and you can have your first one today if you call." This is a message from Jean-Luc Brunel to Jeffrey Epstein on April 1, 2005. The message was jotted down in a notebook by one of the people who worked for the American magnate at the time. Brunel was the director of a French modeling agency and committed suicide in 2022 while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking. At the time he left this phone message, he was a close friend of Epstein and had become one of his main pimps: he not only provided him with models but also underage girls. And he did so with the impunity of being able to leave a phone message like this, leaving a written trail. In fact, the documents declassified by the U.S. Department of Justice contain hundreds of notes that Epstein's employees made of the calls he received and couldn't answer. Some are very explicit. However, no one did anything.

The Vatican has covered up thousands of cases of pedophilia in various parts of the world for nearly a century, according to an investigation by the German media outlet. Corrective, in collaboration with The Country and together with the international media The Boston Globefrom the United States, theObserverfrom Portugal andMacondo HouseFrom Colombia, in which they claim that "the Vatican has what is probably the largest archive of unpunished pedophiles in the world."

The story of Jeffrey Epstein is not just that of a pedophile who ran a prostitution ring catering to wealthy men worldwide. It is also a story of money, politics, and above all, power. Epstein used sex to buy favors and influence, but also to obtain information and increase his fortune. The American magnate, who committed suicide in 2019 in a New York prison, had a network of accomplices who procured young models and minors for him. But he was also the mastermind behind the scheme. What did the wealthy men who came to him want? He provided it and opened the doors of the island to them. Little Saint James: a paradise in the Caribbean where he invited some of the most influential people on the planet and where some of these men assaulted and raped dozens of minors.

In April 2017, Daniel Siad sent an email to Jeffrey Epstein to thank him. This French-Algerian man had just settled in Barcelona and announced that he had already contacted two modeling agencies based in Spain to begin "the"scouting"Of girls. "Spain is safer than Paris, especially Barcelona, ​​it's full of tourists everywhere," the man adds. The documentation that the United States Department of Justice has declassified regarding the Epstein case has allowed thousands of documents of conversations and emails that the pedophile and corrupter of minors had with celebrities, businessmen, and facilitators he had scattered all over the world to come to light. Siad was one of them. The conversations that Epstein had with many young girls also appear.

The 13-year-old girl who was the victim of a massive pedophilia ring operating from Barcelona while under the supervision of the former Directorate General for Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA) "very possibly" suffered more abuse than has been documented. This is the conclusion of the investigating judge following the completion of the judicial investigation, which has been divided into three parts due to the scale of the case. There is also another victim, a 14-year-old boy. The first two parts were already before the Barcelona Provincial Court awaiting trial, and in the first The prosecution has requested 107 years in prison for the leader of the schemeNow, the investigating judge is prosecuting Teófilo, the 45-year-old electrician, for the third time. He already faces up to 107 years in prison for producing child pornography, primarily through the assault of a vulnerable minor. The second person charged in this third part of the investigation is a man from Madrid, currently imprisoned in Aranjuez, who allegedly participated in at least one of the assaults. The Barcelona Court of Instruction Number 7 has taken statements from all parties involved and analyzed various electronic devices, mainly belonging to Teófilo. The investigation concludes that between 2020 and 2021, this defendant contacted several men to arrange meetings at his apartment in the Raval neighborhood so they could have sex with the minor. The investigating judge notes that the girl was below the age of consent, and therefore it is "irrelevant whether or not the minor consented to sexual relations," and these are in any case sexual assaults." The judge cites video footage showing him assaulting the minor, sometimes with other men, or recording the assaults. Twenty-one video files were found from just one assault in which both Teófilo and the defendant participated, which took place in Madrid. "It is possible that more sexual abuse of the minor occurred." In fact, this conclusion is drawn from conversations the suspects had among themselves, recovered during the investigation, in which they "clearly discuss having or having had sexual relations with the minor." However, there is no photographic evidence of these assaults, and the minor does not describe them. Only the main suspect has been identified, and all of this has led the investigating judge to close the investigation against nine of the suspects.

The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has upheld the conviction of Xavier Padial, the confessed pedophile of Barberà del VallèsSentenced to 57 years in prison for repeatedly torturing and sexually abusing two of his cousins, both minors, and forcing one of them into prostitution. "We do not believe that the compensation awarded makes up for what the victims have suffered at the hands of the defendant, and much less that it is disproportionate," states the ruling, which ARA has accessed, and which confirms one of the highest compensations for sexual violence ever awarded by the State. The court awarded €80,000 to the other girl—who suffered abuse from the age of 6 or 7 and prostituted herself under his influence—and €80,000 to the third girl, who also suffered sexual abuse. The court thus rejected the appeal filed by Padial's defense, who also produced child pornography with material obtained from sexual encounters with Laura. "There is no disproportionality whatsoever. The facts are so serious, and their consequences so grave, that we can only agree with the court's decision," reads the document that upholds the sentence handed down in June 2025 by Section 21 of the Provincial Court of Barcelona. During the trial, held in October 2024, the prosecution held the defendant responsible for the "torture" that Laura suffered for 11 years. The harrowing account of the young woman, who testified when she was 23, and who had received threats and coercion, led the prosecution to conclude that Padial had completely "brainwashed" his cousin, turning her into "a toy in the defendant's hands." The victim recounted to the court how, before meeting with clients, her cousin, who was twice her age, would "prepare" and sexually abuse her: "I had to have sex with him to perform well with the clients."

After decades of silence, the Spanish Catholic Church has finally and explicitly acknowledged its responsibility for the sexual abuse of minors, and it is doing so hand in hand with and under the watchful eye of the State. Specifically, under the oversight and mediation of the Ombudsman's office. It was about time. Better late than never. There is a great deal of work to be done. This should be just the beginning, and the Church should be the first to be interested in seeing this through to the end.

"It has been a complex, arduous, tough, and long negotiation, but we have reached the point we wanted, and we are more than satisfied." This is how the Spanish Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, described the negotiations with the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) and the Spanish Conference of Religious to reach an agreement for the "reparation and recognition" of victims of abuse within the Church. "Today, an indisputable step has been taken that brings justice," the minister emphasized during the presentation of the agreement's details this Thursday morning. Bolaños explained that the pact "meets all the requirements set forth by the Ombudsman" and establishes a joint system, between the State and the Church, to define how these compensations should be provided. Thus, a commission will be created to which victims can submit their requests for reparations, and these requests will be forwarded to a victims' unit, led by the Ombudsman, who will decide what reparations are appropriate in each case. "It can be economic, moral, psychological, or restorative reparation, or even all four at once," the minister explained. Once the compensation is defined, developed on a case-by-case basis, the proposal will be presented to both the victim and the Catholic Church, who will have to decide whether to accept it or not. If the parties agree, the proposal will be binding. Bolaños also emphasized that "of course" all reparations will be "paid for by the Catholic Church": "The State will not pay a single cent," he stressed. A prominent role for the Ombudsman

Conversely, if the Ombudsman's proposal does not satisfy either party, a new joint commission will be formed, which will also include victims' associations. This commission will work together to reach a consensus agreement that all parties consider fair. "If there is still no agreement in this second instance, then the Ombudsman's decision will prevail," the minister explained. "Thus, it is clear that the compensation will be decided by the State [the Ombudsman] and the Church will be the one to pay," he emphasized. Furthermore, the financial compensation will be tax-exempt, both for amounts agreed upon from now on and for those already received.

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The writer and journalist Leonor Paqué (Vizcaya, 1963) turned her Renault Clio into a mobile refuge for herself, her brother Diego, and their dog Tinta, traveling 20,000 kilometers across Spain. "I wanted to meet other victims of pedophilia. I had a desire to know who they were, what they were like as adults, and what their lives were like," explains Paqué, who was abused by a priest in the early seventies, when she was only eight years old, at the Santa Marina Children's Hospital in Bilbao, where she was hospitalized. With virtually no resources, she and her brother, the flamenco singer-songwriter Diego Paqué, recorded the interviews and have made a documentary that can be seen on Filmin. Sister Leonor. 20,000 km of confession

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The same thing that happened in Terrassa has happened in Sant Vicenç de Castellet. The same pattern, the same modus operandi: Carles Sallés Ballbé would put his hand under the swimsuits of children between the ages of 7 and 11 while they were swimming in the pool and touch them inappropriately. In Terrassa, he was caught and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in 2016 by the Provincial Court of Barcelona. This spring, he was released from prison and settled in Sant Vicenç de Castellet. Just a few months later, while still on parole, he was caught again: six families reported him on August 28 for sexually abusing girls between the ages of 7 and 9.

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On January 8, Èric will return to Lledoners prison, where he had already spent two years in pretrial detention for sexually assaulting a minor. He has just over two weeks of freedom left after the Barcelona Provincial Court ratified the plea agreement on December 3, sentencing him to six and a half years in prison.

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The electrician accused of leading a pedophilia network in Raval and of sexually assaulting a minor under guardianship He will also be tried for assaulting four other minors in an apartment in the same Barcelona neighborhood. The judge investigating the case has gathered "more than sufficient" evidence to prosecute TLM in another of the separate parts of the same case for sexually assaulting four other minors, recording them without their consent to produce child pornography, and then distributing it.

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