Friday was Spain’s day of clergy-abuse reckoning.
A blistering internal inquiry on Jesuit sexual-abuse allegations in the European nation identified 118 victims since the late 1920s — 81 of them children at the time of the molestations.
While victims’ groups praised the admission, they were aghast that neither the names of the perpetrators nor of those who had covered up the assaults were disclosed, The Associated Press reported on Friday.
They groups are demanding that the Jesuits’ inquiry lead to criminal cases against the abusers who remain alive as well as a compensation plan.
“It’s a timid measure that goes in the right direction, but it falls too short,” Stolen Childhood Association spokesman Miguel Hurtado explained to The AP.
The Jesuits, a Roman Catholic religious order formed in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola, operate 68 schools in Spain that teach approximately 75,000 students. They also run half a dozen universities and education centers.
In a report published Thursday by The Society of Jesus in Spain, an internal probe confirmed that 96 members had been accused of sex abuses since 1927.
For 65 of the Jesuits, the accusations involved underage victims. The report notes that the accused Jesuits comprise just over 1% of the 8,782 members admitted in the order during the past 93 years.
Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, has attempted to sensitize the church to the global problem of clergy abuse and passed laws to hold officials accountable for coverups.
The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that its probe of clergy sex-abuse cases since 1986 showed only eight of 123 alleged perpetrators had been Jesuits until the order’s disclosure, according to The AP.
“Our goal is to create a safe environment in our work and a key part of that is to be accountable for what we do,” said the Rev. Antonio España.