Mr. González:
You have written a legitimate political profile on the tensions between Vox and the bishops. Up to that point, you are within your rights. But you have lifted an entire paragraph of your piece on the backs of victims whom your own newspaper manipulated and to whom your own newspaper still owes a correction. One cannot denounce the instrumentalization of the Church while instrumentalizing its victims. One cannot lecture on rigor from a text that hangs on an adulterated testimony.
Let us begin with the essentials, because you have done everything possible to bury them under layers of politics. At the center of the story you refer to are victims of sexual abuse. Real people. A real case—the one involving Father Lute in the diocese of Chiclayo—documented, substantiated, and for years neglected. That is the news. Everything else—Vox, the conclave, its likes and dislikes—is the noise with which you seek to cover it up.
On October 1, 2025, you interviewed Ana María Quispe Díaz for two hours. From those two hours you extracted a version that inverted the meaning of what she said. You published that the now Leo XIV had suffered “a smear campaign.” What the victim stated, on record, was exactly the opposite: “Sadly, Robert Prevost did not act properly in our case.” On October 7 she exercised her right of rectification under Organic Law 2/1984. You let the three-day legal deadline pass and did not publish it. That is not an “editorial line”: it is a breach of the law and a second victimization of someone who had already been silenced once.
Eight months later, instead of correcting the record, you double down. On June 6 you publish an article—“Leo XIV, the most uncomfortable and inopportune visitor for Vox”—in which the coverage this outlet has given to those victims becomes, without further ado, a piece on your political chessboard. The cause of abused girls turns, in your account, into an instrument of “the far right,” a maneuver, one more episode in the standoff between Vox and the Episcopal Conference. It is hard to imagine a more cynical use of someone else’s pain.
We say this plainly: think what you like of InfoVaticana. Call us “ultra-Catholic” as often as you wish; it is your right and we could not care less. Disagree with our view on the Church’s management, on the conclave, or on whatever you please. None of that is under discussion today. What you cannot do—what no self-respecting media outlet should ever do—is use victims of child abuse to settle scores with a political party.
Because here there is no right or left. Here there is a report of sexual abuse handled with serious irregularities; victims asking for the bare minimum—access to the file, the taking of evidence, that no dispensation be granted to close an investigation falsely, a fair and transparent process; and a case that is a disgrace to the Church regardless of who tells it. The fact that this outcry has been taken up by an outlet you dislike does not turn it into politics. It turns it, simply, into the journalism you refuse to do.
It is also worth clarifying something you seem determined to hide behind your ideological categories. Yes, my name is Javier Tebas Llanas, I am a lawyer, and I learned of this case in June 2025 while working for InfoVaticana. Later I met Ana María Quispe Díaz in person, heard her account, examined the available documentation, and decided to help her until justice is done because she was very much alone. Everyone had abandoned her and even stopped speaking to her because the authority that had treated her negligently was now the most powerful person in the Church. Imagine the position of a psychologically broken victim at such a moment. My involvement in this matter stems exclusively from a legal and moral conviction regarding extremely serious facts that deserve to be investigated rigorously. Vox has absolutely nothing to do with it. No political party has anything to do with it. Those who try to turn this case into an episode of ideological confrontation only help divert attention from what truly matters: the victims and their right to the truth.
I also wish Pope Leo XIV all the best. Precisely for that reason, I believe that clarifying what happened is also what is best for him. The investigation we are conducting suggests that the strategy followed for months has not been aimed at delivering justice to the victims, but at closing the problem in the least costly way possible from an institutional standpoint. I am working on indications that behind certain maneuvers there is some third-rate plumber from the Curia, more concerned with managing a reputational crisis than with seeking the truth. If anyone believes that protecting the Pope consists of abandoning the victims or trying to close a case this serious on false pretenses, they not only harm the complainants: they also harm Leo XIV himself and the credibility of the Church.
We end with a request and a warning. The request: leave the victims of Chiclayo out of your standoff with Vox. Do not use them. Do not do it again. Whoever helps victims of abuse to be heard does not need El País’s approval, but the victims do deserve not to be turned into a weapon. The warning: this outlet will continue to cover this case—the case of the girls of Chiclayo and that of any victims who turn to us, whatever their background—until justice is done. With you against us, if necessary. And those of us collaborating on this task will continue to do so to the end, because justice for the victims is not a political cause: it is a moral and legal obligation.