EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and has updated with all known cases. If you know of any case that has not seen the light, you can write to us at: . If it is a case in Latin America, the address is: .
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The Society of Jesus has removed a priest after receiving an internal complaint against him for pedophilia, as reported by the religious order in a statement this Tuesday. The accused also held “a relevant position” in the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), which “holds said position and all its responsibilities pending clarification of the situation.” “In July 2025, the Company became aware, through its internal complaints channel, of some events that allegedly constituted abuse of minors that occurred in the first decade of this century. After the first internal verifications, in September 2025, credible testimony was collected,” the note says. The accused remains in a Jesuit community “without pastoral relationship or activity and subject to precautionary measures of limitation and supervision,” the congregation explained.
The reported events took place in Alicante and Zaragoza, against a minor. The Company has communicated the case to the Prosecutor’s Office “to determine whether or not the possible acts are statute-barred given the dates on which they were committed.” In the event that the facts can be judged, the order “trusts in the work of Justice to clarify the truth, and will collaborate in everything that is required.” However, the congregation has recalled that this type of crime does not prescribe in canon law, so the ecclesiastical procedure will continue “even if it had no scope in criminal proceedings.”
The Jesuits, who are leading the investigation, have informed EL PAÍS that they are accompanying the victim and that “they are using all the means at their disposal to clarify the facts: the collection of testimonies that could confirm, clarify or add relevant information about this or other hypothetical cases continues.”
The Society of Jesus is the largest religious order on the planet, with more than 15,000 members in 127 countries. A large part of the congregation’s work is focused on education and the management of its schools and universities. In Spain, it is also the congregation with the most recorded cases of pedophilia: 180 accused and 486 victims, according to the EL PAÍS database, the only accounting that already puts the number of cases at 1,564 and those affected at 2,936. It is also one of the few Spanish orders that annually report on the complaints (most of them judicially prescribed) that they receive, publish the initials of the accused and the date of the crimes.
Some of these cases not only refer to Spanish territory, but also to several countries where the congregations sent missionaries. An example is Bolivia, where at least a dozen Jesuits abused minors, according to this newspaper. Among them, Alfonso Pedrajas, the now deceased priest who wrote a diary where he admitted his attacks and how his superiors protected him. This case of cover-up led the Bolivian Prosecutor’s Office to charge two senior members of the order and, finally, this year a court sentenced one year in prison for protecting Pedrajas.
There is also the case of the deceased archbishop Alejandro Mestre, who abused another minor in the sixties, and for which another court in La Paz is investigating other charges of La Compañía, among which is its current provincial, Bernardo Mercado. Similarly relevant are the cases of priests Francesc Peris and Luis Tó (deceased), who were transferred from Barcelona (in the eighties and nineties) to the Bolivian country after abusing minors in Catalonia. Peris, for example, continued to abuse children in Cochabamba and returned to Spain, where he continued to abuse minors until 2005.
