More than 200,000 minors have suffered sexual abuse by Catholic religious since 1940 in Spain, according to a first major independent report on this issue released this Friday in that European country, where for years the victims denounced the opacity of the Catholic Church. The report does not provide an exact figure, but includes a survey carried out at the request of the commission with a sample of 8,000 people, according to which 0.6% of the Spanish adult population (about 39 million people in total) stated that they had suffered sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church when they were minors, reported the AFP news agency. The figure increases to 1.13% of the Spanish adult population (more than 400,000 people) if abuses committed by lay people in religious settings are taken into account, specified in a press conference Ángel Gabilondo, the ombudsman, who coordinated the commission that worked for a year and a half. Gabilondo, a former socialist education minister, said there have been cases since the 1940s, but that the bulk of them occurred between 1970 and 1990. In addition, the commission of experts interviewed 487 victims of sexual abuse, who highlighted "the emotional problems" it has caused them, such as post-traumatic stress, which a third of them suffered, Gabilondo said. For the Ombudsman, who officially delivered the report of more than 700 pages to the Spanish Congress, which had commissioned it in March 2022, the text is a "response" to the "suffering and loneliness" of those affected.