Sumar wants to promote a commission on abuses in the Church in Congress and debate the elimination of his personal income tax box

Marta Lois defends dealing with these abuses in parliament: They are "very serious" acts committed over decades

MADRID, 25 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Sumar's spokesperson in Congress, Marta Lois, has stated that her group wants to promote a commission of inquiry into sexual abuse within the Church, following the Ombudsman's report.

In addition, she has been in favor of also debating the elimination of the box in the income tax return, which gives the option of allocating 0.7% of the personal income tax contribution to the financial support of the Church.

In an interview with Europa Press, Lois pointed out that she is working on the need to request the creation of a parliamentary commission focused on studying and assessing the scope of cases of sexual abuse within the Church, which the department led by Ángel Gabilondo has put in place. "white on black" in a recent "very valuable" study.

In this regard, he pointed out that to date the number of sexual abuses, especially of minors, by members of the Catholic Church was unknown, although it could be intuited, which is why "everything that that report brings with it" and address "with greater clarity" what measures can be adopted in this regard.

"In this case we are talking about very serious acts that have been committed over many decades in our country," Lois defended regarding this commission and explained that it is time to review aspects of the relationship between the State and the Church. , such as support for religious educational entities

In this regard, Sumar's spokesperson has encouraged "in-depth" evaluation and debate on the elimination of the income tax box for the Church, since she questions whether "it makes sense" to maintain it.

The Spanish Catholic Church raised a total of 358.8 million euros in the last Income Tax campaign, corresponding to the fiscal year 2022 (0.7% of personal income tax), reaching a new record. This figure represents 11.9% more (38 million euros more) compared to the previous year, according to provisional data published by the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE).

In the last legislature, Podemos, ERC and Bildu registered the request for a commission of investigation into the abuse of minors by the Catholic Church, although the PSOE opted above all to entrust this work to the Ombudsman through a group of experts that resulted in that report. The Board of Speakers in the chamber avoided setting a specific date for the debate on the deployment of said parliamentary commission.

Following the data released by Ángel Gabilondo's department, voices from the space such as Sumar's deputy spokesperson, Aina Vidal, advocated for reinitiating in this legislature the request for a commission on abuses in the Church, making it clear that there were no more excuses for unfold it.

Meanwhile, the report from the Cremades law firm

In turn, the Ombudsman's report, presented last October, collects 487 testimonies and includes a survey that estimates that 0.6% of the Spanish population over 18 years of age has suffered sexual abuse in the Church by of a priest or religious when he was a minor.