Spain’s Roman Catholic Church has reached an agreement with the government to compensate victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy.

The accord follows complaints that religious leaders had failed to tackle the issue adequately.

It means the government will manage possible compensation in co-ordination with the Church, handling cases where other legal avenues are no longer available because the alleged crime took place too long ago or the individual accused has passed away.

Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards are estimated by the government to have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Church figures. The move follows similar redress schemes in other nations where abuse has been uncovered.

“A democracy should not allow the existence of victims who have never been compensated [and] whose situation, on the contrary, had been covered up,” said Justice Minister Félix Bolaños after signing the agreement.

He added that the agreement sought to “pay off an historic, moral debt that we had with victims of abuse within the Church”.

The other signatories were Luis Argüello, president of the Episcopal Conference and leader of the Spanish Catholic Church, and Jesús Díaz Sariego, president of Confer, which represents Catholic congregations and religious orders.

Mr Sariego said the initiative was unprecedented as it tackled crimes that had gone past the statute of limitations.

Argüello, who is archbishop of Valladolid, described the accord as “another step forward along the path that for years we have been travelling”.

A 2023 study by the Spanish ombudsman’s office, which investigates public complaints, estimated that 1.1% of the population had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of members of the clergy or individuals linked to the Church – the equivalent of 440,000 people.

The Church has contested these findings.

It set up a reparation scheme that year to manage abuse claims.

However, both the Socialist-led government and victims’ organisations have been dissatisfied with the scheme’s model, which did not allow input or oversight from outside the Church.

In November, the Church said that 58 cases had been “resolved” under its framework.

However, critics accused the institution of a lack of transparency and slowness.

Newspaper El País, which has created a database of clerical abuse allegations, has documented cases affecting 2,948 victims dating back as far as the 1940s.

Last June, several victims’ groups broke off ties with the Spanish Church, alleging that it had excluded them from seeking reparations.

The Vatican subsequently appeared to take a more prominent role, with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors meeting Spanish victims and urging the country’s Catholic leaders to bolster and facilitate reparations.

Meetings between Justice Minister Bolaños and the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, appear to have raised the pressure further on the Church authorities in Madrid.

Under the new system, victims will be able to file their cases before a new agency created by the justice ministry, which will then take them before the ombusdman’s office, which will draw up a reparation proposal.

The Church must then agree to the proposed compensation – if not, the case will be referred back to the ombudsman.

Reparation can be symbolic, psychological, or economic, according to the agreement. In each case, the Church is responsible for its execution.

The amount of financial compensation that could be paid out is not specified.

However, the ombudsman has suggested following the lead of other European countries.

In Belgium, an average of €6,000 ($7,000; £5,210) has been paid to victims in such cases, although the late Pope Francis described that amount as “too small”.

Ireland’s redress board paid out an average of around €63,000 to victims.

Sexual abuse by members of the clergy first received significant attention in the US and Canada in the 1980s.

In the 1990s, the issue began to grow, with stories emerging in Argentina, Australia and revelations of widespread historical abuse in Ireland.

By the early 2000s, sexual abuse within the Church was a major global story.

Spain, a Catholic country, was affected by relatively few scandals in that time.

However, investigations by the media have brought the issue to light more recently.

In the most recent high-profile case, the bishop of Cádiz, Rafael Zornoza, resigned in November, following an accusation of abuse dating back to the 1990s.

Victims’ organisations have welcomed the new agreement in Spain.

“This is an endemic, structural evil which has been within the Church and which it should have tackled a long time ago instead of covering up paedophiles,” said Juan Cuatrecasas, of the Association for Stolen Childhood (Anir), who said he was “fully satisfied”.