Toledo abuse case in Spain further illustrates snags in seeking justice
Primatial Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo, Spain. (Credit: Wikimedia.)
By Elise Ann Allen
ROME – Nearly 15 years after “Carlos” was allegedly abused while in minor seminary and after countless complaints both locally and in Rome, a canonical process has finally been ordered against his apparent abuser, but with a few snags.
Among other things, “Carlos,” a false name, said that it took 15 years for a canonical procedure to be opened last spring, and even then, he was not informed that this step had been taken.
After finding out about it only in recent weeks, Carlos said he was shocked to see that the case is being tried in the ecclesiastical province of Toledo in Spain, where his abuser is from, and that the archbishop set to oversee the case and appoint judges is someone he has denounced for coverup in the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops.
Carlos said he was sexually abused as a minor by his spiritual director, Father Pedro Francisco Rodríguez Ramos, while attending the minor seminary Santo Tomás de Villanueva in Toledo.
He first mentioned the alleged abuse to church authorities in the region in 2009, and his mother informed the then-Archbishop of Toledo, Braulio Rodríguez Plaza, in March 2010, but apparently no action was taken until 2021, after the case went public in Spanish media.
During the civil trial, Rodríguez Ramos confirmed in his testimony that the archdiocese had known about Carlos’s accusations in 2010.
Carlos filed a civil complaint against Rodríguez Ramos in 2016, and the priest was found guilty in October 2023. However, Rodríguez Ramos was acquitted on appeal on grounds that an error in the preliminary investigation harmed his defense, but his guilt over the abuse allegations was not questioned.
Carlos is currently waiting for his own appeal to the acquittal to be considered, and last summer the Supreme Court prosecutor’s office recommended that the original guilty verdict be upheld.
Given the lack of action by the Archdiocese of Toledo, with Rodríguez Ramos remaining in ministry and receiving various new positions until 2021, Carlos made regular complaints to the Vatican against Rodríguez Ramos starting in 2022.
In 2023, he accused Rodríguez Plaza and the current archbishop of Toledo, Francisco Cerro, of coverup and negligence, as well as Bishop César García Magán, auxiliary bishop of Toledo and the secretary general of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference.
Carlos at the time also denounced a fourth bishop from a diocese near Toledo of coverup and negligence in his case.
He has filed formal complaints for coverup against these individuals and others in the Vatican Dicasteries for Bishops and for Clergy, and with the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, in addition to his complaints to the DDF.
He has also had personal contact with Pope Francis about his case, finally meeting the pontiff in December 2023 after writing several letters. The two have stayed in touch, and maintain regular contact.
While the Vatican’s typical modus operandi in clerical abuse cases where a civil procedure is also underway is to let civil justice take its course before beginning their own canonical proceedings, in Carlos’s case, the DDF, which handles abuse cases, ordered the opening of a canonical process last March, according to documents which Crux has seen.
In Carlos’s view, this decision was likely made given Rodríguez Ramos’s initial guilty verdict and the fact he was acquitted on a technicality, not over any doubt regarding the abuse allegations themselves.
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