Bishops and the government in Spain agree on a plan to compensate sexual abuse victims

Spain’s government and the country’s Catholic bishops have agreed to a joint plan to compensate victims of sexual abuse by clergy members who have died or whose possible crimes have been proscribed. Victims can now file claims with the country's ombudsman who will propose a compensation package to the church's special committee for reparations. The ombudsman will have oversight and the final word in case of disagreements over the claims. In 2023, Spain’s ombudsman delivered a damning 800-page report that investigated hundreds of cases of sexual abuse and calculated the number of possible victims could reach the hundreds of thousands.