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Pope Leo XIV may soon accept a sick person’s resignation Spanish Bishop who is under church investigation for allegedly sexually abusing a young seminarian in the 1990s is the head of the Spanish Catholic The bishops’ conference said on Monday.
Archbishop Luis Javier Arguello Garcia told reporters in St. Peter’s Square that the conference’s hierarchy had discussed the matter with Leo during an audience on Monday.
Arguello confirmed a report in El País newspaper that an authentic investigation into 76-year-old Cadiz Bishop Rafael Zornoza had been opened two weeks ago. It is believed to be the first publicly known church investigation of a Spanish bishop accused of abuse since the Spanish Church in recent years began reckoning with a decades-long legacy of abuse and cover-ups.
The Diocese of Cadiz has denied the allegations against Zornoza but confirmed that the investigation is being conducted by a church court. madrid Known as Rota. In a November 10 statement, the diocese said Zornoza was cooperating with the investigation and had temporarily suspended his agenda “to clarify the facts and receive treatment for an aggressive form of cancer.”
“The allegations made here are very serious and false, referring to events that occurred nearly 30 years ago,” the statement said.
Spain’s El País daily, which has exposed decades of abuse and cover-ups in the Spanish Catholic Church since 2018, reported earlier this month that Zornoza had been accused of abusing a young former seminarian while he was a young priest and directing the diocesan seminary in Getafe.
The report cites a letter written by a former seminarian Vatican Zornoza courted her and regularly slept with her during the summers when he was 14–21 years old. The former seminarian’s letter states that Zornoza heard his confession and persuaded him to see a psychiatrist to “cure” his homosexuality.
Speaking to reporters, Argüello emphasized both the victim’s right to come forward and “the right to the presumption of innocence.”
Zornoza had offered his resignation last year upon reaching the mandatory retirement age for bishops at 75, but it was not immediately accepted.
Arguello suggested Leo could soon accept the resignation and name a temporary replacement to run the diocese while the investigation continues.
“They told us it could be accepted,” he said. “That it would be accepted at a specific date and time, no, but that it could be accepted, yes.”
El País said Zornoza is believed to be the first Spanish Catholic bishop publicly known to be investigated for allegations of child sexual abuse. His case was one of several that have come to light in recent years as the once-devout Catholic spain Shaken by revelations of abuse and cover-up by priests.
In 2023, the first official investigation into abuses in Spain indicated that the number of victims could be in the hundreds of thousands, based on a survey that was part of a report by Spain’s Office of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman conducted an 18-month independent investigation into 487 cases involving alleged victims who spoke to the Ombudsman’s team.
Spain’s Catholic bishops apologized but dismissed the ombudsman report’s interpretations as “lies”, arguing that many more were abused outside the church.
The Spanish Catholic hierarchy then released its own report, which in 2024 said it had found evidence of 728 sexual abusers within the Church since 1945. After the Spanish government approved a plan to force the Church to pay economic compensation, it launched a plan to compensate the victims.
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