TW: child sexual abuse
Spanish Bishop Rafael Zornoza is under investigation by the Vatican over allegation of sexual abuse of a child. This will be the first time an investigation into a sitting member of the Catholic Church will take place in Spain.
Bishop Zornoza is accused of sexually assaulting one male victim from when he was 14 to 21 years old. The accusations date back to the mid 1990s when Zornoza was private secretary to the Bishop in the newly founded Diocese of Getafe, a Latin ecclesiastical territory (a geographic area under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church). It was here the abuse allegedly started.
The allegations first came to light when the Spanish newspaper El País obtained the emails sent from the victim to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. This is the branch of the Catholic Church that regulates its teachings. In these emails the alleged victim wrote:
“I write this letter only with the intention of ensuring that what happened to me should not keep happening to another child.”
Zornoza has not personally responded to the allegations though the Diocese of Cádiz and Ceuta of which he became Bishop of in 2011 stated:
“The accusations being made, referring to events that took place nearly 30 years ago, are very serious and, what’s more, false.”
Zornoza has cancelled public engagements as it is reported he is receiving treatment for an “aggressive cancer”.
According to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), between 1970 and 2015 the Catholic Church received 900 complaints involving over 3,000 incidents of child sexual abuse. 900 individuals connected to the Catholic Church were accused in these cases, with 133 being convicted and millions paid in compensation. According to an El País database, more than 1,500 clergy members in Spain have been accused of sexual abuse, with nearly 3,000 known victims.
Despite investigations into the historical sexual abuse allegations by the Catholic Church in Spain, this will be the first time that a sitting Bishop will be investigated in Spain. Through an independent public inquiry conducted in 2022, it was found that 0.6% of the country’s adult population, roughly 39 million people, said that they had suffered sexual abuse as children by members of the clergy.
Up until 2021, Spain’s statute of limitations only made allegations of child sexual abuse prosecutable if they were made before the victim was 21 years old. This was extended by 17 years after a campaign was led by an alleged victim of a catholic priest.
This month Pope Leo XIV met with 15 Belgian victims of child abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church. This visit was a follow up from the meeting Pope Francis had with the same group in 2024. Members of the group are calling for the removal of Archbishop Luc Terlinden of Mechelen-Brussels, for his “indifference” towards victims. One member of the group said:
“We’re not demanding that sum, but we want the Church to recognise the magnitude of what was taken from us.”
