The Spain Attorney General’s Office announced Wednesday that it is investigating 68 cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors by Catholic church staff members. This is the first release of such official data.

The Spanish Catholic Church has been under heavy scrutiny since allegations of sexual abuse of minors within the church surfaced in December 2021. Since then, both the church and parliament launched investigations into the matter. In early February, the Universidad de Navarra (University of Navarra) in Spain published its findings of 58 cases of sexual abuse by Catholic institutions since 1948. 

On January 31, the Attorney General’s Office joined the effort by requesting Superior Prosecutors to come forward with any information they had on allegations of sexual abuse within their respective jurisdictions. Prosecutors procured information from 17 regions.

From that information, the Attorney General’s Office compiled a list of 68 criminal proceedings that are currently open in both judicial offices and in the prosecutor’s office. No case-specific information was attached to the case count.

With this data now in hand, the Attorney General’s Office stated that they plan to carry out a qualitative analysis to determine the scope of the issue and sufficiency of the procedures in place.

Scandals of sexual abuse of minors within the Church have been identified in other countries, including Italy, other regions in Spain, and France.