Alicante will withdraw from the road the avenue devoted to Father Ángel escapes after publishing the nation its abuses | Society | EUROtoday

The nation launched in 2018 an investigation of pedophilia within the Spanish Church and has an up to date database with all recognized instances. If you already know any case that has not seen the sunshine, you may write to: abusos@elpais.es If it’s a case in Latin America, the handle is: abusosamerica@elpais.es

───────────

A number of hours after this newspaper printed that the Order of the Augustinians has compensated two victims of Father Ángel escapes for sexual abuse on the finish of the seventies, the City Council of Alicante (the place the priest has an avenue in his identify) has determined to withdraw it from the road. The lawyer of one of many victims formally requested the City Council itself (ruled by the PP) final August when she connected the documentation – with out figuring out the complainants out of respect for privateness – indicating that the order requested forgiveness for the abuses. From the Department of Statistics, they answered, in response to paperwork consulted by this newspaper, that you possibly can not take a measure as requested for being an “anonymous complaint”, for being the road “dedicated to a natural person and not to school” [lugar donde se cometieron los abusos]for respecting “the presumption of innocence since there is no judicial resolution.” The crimes have prescribed, so there is no such thing as a judicial sentence.

The order opened a canonical investigation that despatched to Rome. There it was determined to “not lift the prescription.” The victims are acknowledged – ”though there was no course of or sentence, we give credibility to the criticism of sexual abuse in opposition to Father Angel escapes,” reads the compensation settlement – and the Augustinians have compensated each.

Through a press release, this Saturday, the City Council has introduced that it’s going to withdraw from the road the identify of the avenue devoted to Father Ángel escapes (Avinguda Pare Ángel escapes Agustino) who was provincial of the Order, professor, director of the Agustinos College of Alicante and founding father of the Handball group of the varsity itself in 1972 (the membership is formally constituted in 1979). “The City Council will eliminate recognition to the religious after recognizing its relationship with two cases of sexual abuse of minors in the Agustinos school in the late 1970s. Once the facts have been recognized, there is no other alternative to withdraw from the street from the city to whom, for its behavior, it has not proven to be deserving of this recognition,” explains Mayor Luis Barcala.

That of the Augustinian Handball Alicante was one of the crucial prolific college quarries of the Spanish handball, a lot that in December 2023, the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) escaped an official recognition with an Olympic distinction through which it’s outlined as an “eminence” of that sport. “We have waited for prudence to the explicit recognition of the facts by the Agustina community, since there had been no sentence for sexual abuse,” says the mayor within the assertion. Actually, the sufferer’s lawyer has already despatched the documentation through which the Order apologized to the victims. Barcala, in response to the identical assertion, has already warned the Augustinian college of Alicante.

Father Ángel, who was within the thirties when he dedicated the abuses, will flip 81 in July and act as a “assistant” in Huelva, within the Ballavista neighborhood in three rural parishes. Depending on the order, it has no pastoral commerce and is prohibited from finishing up actions with minors. According to the sufferer to this newspaper, sexual abuse started in major and prolonged for 4 years, to BUP (the present highschool). “The abuses began in their room, then they went to their office and the handball costume, later I already used any corner of the school to get close. I started with hugs, kisses on the cheeks, I lifted my shirt, stroked me. I took my hand to his genitals. He liked to sit on his knees, kiss me and touch me.

After the decision of the City Council, the victim has declared to this newspaper that he feels very relieved. “The aim was for individuals to know who Father Ángel actually is and that the City Council withdraw the road, one thing we requested for a lot of months in the past.”