“After 35 years of being raped by three priests, I want justice.”

PalmCatalina's (a pseudonym) hands move across the table as if it were a piano. Sometimes her fingers drum; other times they hang still in the air, searching for keys that don't exist. "It helps me calm down," she says before beginning her story, which follows. She learned to play the instrument when she was a child. Since then, mentally tracing staircases or imagining music helps her to organize her inner turmoil. Even now, as she awaits a trial she never thought she would have to face.

Catalina is 55 years old. For months now, her body has stopped responding as it once did. Doctors speak of a neuronal desynchronization of emotional origin. Basic functions are no longer activated. "My brain, for example, stops sending information to my bladder or creates nonexistent visual images. These are irreversible consequences," she explains.

For 35 years, Catalina was raped by four men who held positions of authority over her. The first was her father. The other three were members of the Catholic Church: two Jesuits from the Monti-sion school in Palma (identified by the initials LAS and FMR) and a priest from the Diocese of Mallorca (JCV), all between 20 and 25 years her senior. This year, the Provincial Court of Palma will try the three priests for repeated sexual assault. The trial comes as Catalina undergoes cancer treatment for metastasis and years after her body began to express what for decades she couldn't even name. "I want justice," she says. "And I don't want this to happen to anyone else."

"That was normal"

She grew up in a well-to-do, conservative, Catholic, and "very authoritarian" family. In her home, questioning anything was out of the question. Obedience was an obligation, and silence was part of her upbringing. Her father's "goodnight" included touching from the time she was a little girl. "I grew up experiencing it as if it were normal. If I ran into him in the hallway, he'd put his hand under my shirt and squeeze my nipples."

The first time he raped her was on the family sailboat. She was 15. "He'd put the boat on autopilot, and I knew what to expect. He did it in broad daylight. When he finished, he'd throw me some napkins and say, 'Clean yourself up, you whore.'"

When she got home, Catalina closed her bedroom door and told her mother. "She simply told me, 'You have to obey your father. I'll never abandon him because he's very wealthy. If you tell anyone, I'll say you're lying. It's a family secret. It happens to all of them. You can't tell anyone. I don't want to stop being rich in Palma,'" she recounts. "My father had told me not to move while he was inside me because if I did, he would hit me. And my mother accepted it. Once she did ask him what he had done to me, and he replied that he had only tickled me. She said, 'If you do the same to the little one, she'll kill you.' I've always wondered why me."

At home and away

It was 1985. There were no institutional campaigns or shared language to name sexual violence in the home. "Who was supposed to tell me that my father couldn't do this to me? I normalized it. I was convinced that all the girls my age went through the same thing," she continues. She entered the Marian congregation at the Monti-sion school in Palma, where she met the Jesuit FMR in 1986. "He asked me if I'd like to sing in the choir, he showed me the piano room. I was always in a corner, quiet. He doesn't even remember me like that, but later I learned that he knew me."

In the spiritual interviews, FMR would ask her how she was doing, how she was living her faith, what was worrying her. In that atmosphere of trust, Catalina told him about her situation at home. "History repeated itself. He abused me and started raping me in the office at the Monti-sion school in Son Moix. I just kept thinking, if my father did it, why wouldn't this priest?"

The priest was assigned to Zaragoza in 1988, but he summoned her several summers to attend children's camps in Las Hurdes (Extremadura). "He told the whole group that we had to sleep in the same room so he could watch me and make sure I didn't commit suicide, and he raped me every night surrounded by children. One day we had a costume party. He stole some of my clothes and, dressed like me, put tape over his mouth, as a mockery and to make me naked until 2021."

FMR's replacement at the religious school from 1988 onwards was LAS. His method of approaching Catalina, according to her account, was identical: an atmosphere of trust, a figure of power, and submission. The rapes soon followed, in the office of the primary school pastoral delegate of Monti-sion, in Son Moix, the same one as his predecessor. "I didn't question anything. In fact, sometimes he would summon several women and we had to wait for his orders. I know for a fact that he had relationships with others. Once I asked him if being a priest didn't prevent him from doing that. He replied: 'It's no big deal. I get to Monti-sion, I tell a colleague and he absolves me. He justifies himself with 'He justifies himself.' I would have benefits with God," she recalls.

Silence

The abuse, which began in the victim's adolescence, continued for years, always within the same context of silence. "I finished my studies, found a job, and became independent at 24. At that time, I was being raped by three men: my father and the two Jesuits." Upon leaving the family home, she managed to escape her father, but the visits from Father JCV began, and with them, the abuse. "He had seen me born. He was the family priest. He visited us once a month. As children, we were impressed by his stories as a missionary and military chaplain. When he finished the meetings at the parish, he would say to me, 'Come, tell me how you're doing, and we'll have dinner.' When I arrived, all he would say was, 'Thank you, sweetheart,' and I would return home so traumatized that I went to bed on an empty stomach," she recalls.

"What they did to me was like something out of a fictional world, parallel to real life, which I entered and exited. I lived in a duality where I answered the rapist's call: I went and returned with the same old promises, that God held me in his favor and would watch over my faith. The figure of a father was synonymous with silence," she explains.

To endure the pain and emptiness, Catalina's brain shut down. "I went on autopilot. I remained motionless, dead. I obeyed his commands. I was like a piece of furniture, as if my body wasn't mine. I felt the pain, but I didn't feel anything. I just wanted it all to end." The psychological mechanism, known as dissociation, became a constant.

The brain that shuts down

According to clinical psychologist Anna Sala, who has treated Catalina, what she describes is common in victims of ongoing violence during childhood and adolescence. "Dissociation is a defense mechanism in the face of an extreme situation. It allows one to disconnect from the pain when there is no possibility of escape," she explains. "In contexts of sexual abuse, especially when the aggressor is a role model or authority figure, the brain learns to shut down in order to survive." This same mechanism can facilitate the repetition of abuse in adulthood. "When trauma takes hold so early, it becomes normalized. There is no clear boundary between right and wrong. If, in addition, the other person has power, tacit obedience is generated." The diagnoses came late: post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder. Chronic consequences that permeate all areas of her life. "It's a disorder that isn't limited to a memory," the psychologist points out. "It permeates how you connect with others, your self-esteem, your ability to set boundaries. It affects the whole person. Then, therapeutically, you shouldn't hold onto anger in order to move forward and live in peace." For Sala, Catalina "has made many changes, thanks also to her intellectual and artistic abilities; she's a different person."

Something wasn't right

For decades, Catalina couldn't put a name to what was happening to her. She only knew that something wasn't right. "I didn't say I was sad," she recalls. "I said I felt bad. But I never said why." Meanwhile, suicide attempts followed one after another—the first at age 27—along with stays in the psychiatric unit, eating disorders, and therapy. But the events following the pain remained unspoken.

Eight years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and a psychiatric illness. "None of the three [religious men] cared. They knew my condition and carried on. JCV, for example, came to the clinic where I was admitted. He found out which room I was in, taking advantage of his position as a priest. Wearing his clerical collar, he gave me communion, pulled back the sheet, pulled back the sheet, pulled back the sheet, pulled back the sheet, pulled back the sheet. I had the chemo IVs. My mental block prevented me from pressing the call button for the nurse."

The Awakening

After years in the hands of experts, the turning point for Catalina came at age 50. "I was in a music therapy session, lying down, relaxed, and I saw that a priest was raping me. Then, I saw that there were two more. The whole puzzle began to fall into place. If you ask me what must have clicked in my head, I would say it was when the diocesan priest showed up at my house. I had breast reconstruction after a double mastectomy, I was covered in stitches, and he wanted to tear off the bandages to touch my breasts. For the first time, I didn't obey. Later, in a therapy workshop, Catalina expressed her experiences through art: "Here I was able to say out loud: my father raped me. When you do that, everything changes. You can't hide it anymore."

Report

After decades of silence, Catalina first turned to ecclesiastical justice in 2020. "No one doubted what I said," she states. In the canonical sphere, both the Society of Jesus and the Diocese of Mallorca acknowledged the existence of abuse, issued public apologies, including one to Catalina herself, and adopted disciplinary measures against the three priests involved, including a ban on exercising ministry in public and restrictions on their pastoral and psychological counseling activities. In Rome, Pope Francis handed down the maximum penalty against the priest of the Diocese of Mallorca. The Diocese decreed that the maximum penalty was expulsion from the priesthood, but JCV hired a private lawyer. He appealed and won.

Ultimately, none of them were expelled from the Church. "After I reported them, they sent FMR to a camp with 15- and 16-year-old boys. A Jesuit came to apologize to me for it. I found it unbelievable," protests Catalina, who demanded an explanation from the Church for keeping them: "They told me: 'Yes; then, it's better to leave them in our convents.'"

The criminal route

The Church's response, limited in terms of sanctions, led the victim to decide to take the case to the civil courts, through the criminal justice system. "There is no concept of an adult abuse victim in canon law," explains Catalina's lawyer, Nacho Gutiérrez, of the firm Gutiérrez Nadal Abogados. "The Church judges according to a different logic. This leaves many people out," she protests.

The investigation has been complex. The case file exceeds 600 pages. The case is being heard in the Court of Instruction number 5 of Palma. The three clergymen, all nearing 80 years old, are being investigated for alleged crimes of continuous sexual assault, and the criminal proceedings remain open. The statute of limitations has expired for the crimes committed by Catalina's father. The statute of limitations has not expired for those of the three priests: "We maintain that the abuse continued until five years ago. It must be proven that it occurred. It's a matter of evidence," explains Gutiérrez. But they have it and have presented it to the judge. The defendants were prohibited from contacting the victim, and LAS did so. Catalina saw the missed call. She called him back and recorded the conversation. "I shouldn't have done it," he replies when the victim asks him for explanations about the events that occurred between 1988 and 2020. Similarly, she reminds him of a specific, very explicit episode: "Do you remember that there were days when FMR and you raped me on the same day and that you cut off my nipples?" The defendant responds: "I remember that once there was blood on your nipples."

At the courthouse, two of the defendants testified to having had intimate contact with the complainant, but limited to caresses and kisses, and maintain that it was consensual. The investigation has been extended before the trial can begin. "I didn't report them for money. I wanted them removed for good, so other girls wouldn't go through what I went through. They prey on the weak, those who are in a corner, like I was, because there was something behind it," Catalina explains.

Restore oblivion

Catalina is cautious about the agreement reached between the state government and the Church to compensate victims like herself under the Ombudsman's supervision. "I'm on the list. They won't restore my memory. They won't cure my illness. But at least they should have the decency to cover all my expenses for life. They've reviewed my disability: I have a 79% disability rating and 28% reduced mobility. I have metastasis, and a diagnosis of metastasis has kept me from the idea of ​​suicide. And yes, of course, I want justice," she declares. Now, with her fists clenched on the imaginary piano.