Nearly 50 years after she was forcibly taken from her home and confined in a Catholic-run institution, Consuelo Garcia del Cid is preparing to witness a long-awaited moment: a formal apology from Spain’s religious orders for their role in the abuse of women under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.
Garcia del Cid was just 16 years old in 1974 when a family doctor, accompanied by her mother, injected her with a sedative in her bedroom in Barcelona. She awoke a day later in Madrid, confined to one of dozens of state-backed Catholic institutions where women and girls were sent for so-called moral rehabilitation.
On Monday, the Spanish Confederation of Religious (CONFER), representing more than 400 Catholic congregations, will hold the first-ever public ceremony in Spain to ask for forgiveness from survivors. The event had been postponed following the death of Pope Francis.
While many welcome the move, survivors and campaigners say the apology must go further. They are calling for a national reckoning and an official apology from the Spanish government, similar to Ireland’s 2013 acknowledgement of abuses in its Magdalene Laundries.
“It’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Pilar Dasi, 73, who was sent to a centre in Valencia in 1971 after being reported by a cousin to the police for associating with leftist men. “This is good for the Church’s image, but the government must also act.”
The network of institutions, known as the Patronato de Protección a la Mujer (Board for the Protection of Women), was created in 1941 under the Justice Ministry and overseen by Carmen Polo, Franco’s wife. The program ran until 1985, ten years after Franco’s death.
According to Spain’s Democratic Memory Ministry, which oversees efforts to address historical injustices, the government supports CONFER’s initiative and is planning its own recognition ceremony later this year. It intends to formally designate the women held in the institutions as victims of the Franco regime.
“These women will be considered victims and will receive official declarations of recognition and reparation,” the ministry said, without detailing the timing.
Garcia del Cid, now 66 and the author of five books on the subject, said her family had contacted authorities out of concern for her participation in anti-dictatorship demonstrations. She described the institution she was sent to as “a sinister place filled with religious indoctrination,” where life revolved around labor and prayer.
“If you are told all day long that you are crazy, a slut, a lost cause, there comes a point where you might start to believe it,” she said. She remained in state custody until 1976.
The institutions targeted girls and women up to the age of 25, including single mothers, daughters of political prisoners, and those reported by priests or family members for perceived immorality.
“A bad girl could be someone who smoked, skipped school, wore miniskirts, or kissed a boy in the cinema,” said Mariaje Lopez, 67, who spent five years in a facility beginning in 1965. “No one asked who got the girl pregnant—they just blamed her.”
One of the most notorious centers was the Penagrande Maternity Home in Madrid, where, according to the advocacy group Banished Daughters of Eve, young women were coerced into giving up their babies. Some survivors claim newborns were taken without consent and never seen again.
“Penagrande was the horror of horrors,” said Paca Blanco, 76, who cycled through several centers in the late 1960s. “They told us the babies died. But they were taken—sold, maybe. We never knew.”
CONFER said its decision to hold the ceremony came after listening to survivors and conducting its investigations. “It allows survivors to experience a moment of healing and helps us improve how we address such painful realities,” CONFER chair Fr. Jesús Díaz Sariego said.
The Spanish Bishops’ Conference referred questions to CONFER, citing its independent status. The Vatican has not commented.
Garcia del Cid, who plans to attend the ceremony, sees the event as a small but significant step. But for her and many others, closure remains elusive.“I will go to my grave with this,” she said. “It was the greatest atrocity Spain ever committed against its women.”
REUTERS/S.S