“You committed sexual abuse, an abuse of power and an abuse of the trust I had in you.” Ana is one of the hundreds of victims of Father EGG’s exorcisms, and one of the few who dared to confront him about the abuse they suffered. For almost seven years, between 2007 and 2013, she was subjected to “exorcisms” which were in reality sexual assaults. At 44, and for the first time, she wishes to tell her story, and says she is ready to denounce it, civilly and canonically, to “help other women” to shed light on what she suffered. With a few friends, he even launched the website to “share what we experienced in a safe space”.
In July 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, Ana took courage and wrote to her alleged attacker. “I trusted you, you were a spiritual father and a very important support. You have helped me a lot (…) However, you have committed abuse and crossed a line that should under no circumstances be crossed. Three weeks later, the priest, who, although he had been forbidden to exercise this type of practice, as well as to confess or preach for ten years, is still a priest, responded to Ana’s letter : “The Church, he placed in my hands an instrument to do good to others, which I perhaps did not know how to use correctly, at least in all cases, because of my inexperience. I also don’t think I wanted to use prayer as an instrument of power, to make people believe that they had the demon inside and that only I could take it out, thus establishing a dependency on my regard. In any case, that was never my intention,” justified the clergyman in the letter sent to Ana.
EGG called Ana his “dear spiritual daughter.” She met the priest in 2007, when she was 23, through friends who invited her on a pilgrimage through Europe. “When we returned, I began to have spiritual direction with him. » It was a time when the young woman felt “a little lost and alone” and, although she never stopped following therapy with a professional, the priest offered to help her “with exorcisms “.
She was lying on the floor, on a rug, and he was kneeling next to her. He used holy water, crosses of different sizes which he placed on me, an oil paint which he spread on my body and his breath which he introduced into my body by putting his hand in my mouth and blowing into it.
“When I accepted, I was already among this group of disciples, because Father EGG helped everyone, everyone wanted to confess to him, and he had a refuge behind La Almudena, called La Casita de los Pobres, where he helped immigrants a lot. and everyone who needed it.
“I was determined to perform better without clothes.”
How were the exorcisms produced? “At the beginning, a nun was present, but during the next exorcism, we were alone. I was lying on the ground, on a rug, and he was standing next to me, kneeling, dressed in his clerical and a stole. I closed my eyes and he prayed to expel the demon with the Manual of Exorcisms in his hand. He used holy water, crosses of different sizes which he placed on me, an oil paint which he spread on my body and his breath, which he introduced into my body by putting his hand in my mouth and blowing into it,” says Ana. .
After several sessions, “he suggested doing it without clothes” because “he was determined that it was more effective and that people would be healed, or things would happen (screaming, dizziness, vomiting) if it was done in this way.” This made him doubt, but he eventually accepted. “I wanted to continue being his little girl,” she admits with pain. “I put on a sheet, and at the beginning of the prayer I took it off, and I put the oil on my bare chest, I spread it and I placed the crosses…”, the woman remembers what happened behind the closed bed. doors of La Casita de los Pobres, but also in other religious buildings of La Berzosa or San Agustín del Guadalix.
In the letter she sent to the priest, Ana explains what these practices have caused her. “I believe that a priest is not obliged to see me naked, nor to lay his hands on my body, nor to anoint it with oil, nor to place crosses on my breasts, nor to pass the light of ‘a lamp over my whole body, nor to blow his breath. blow on my mouth so I can breathe it in, or touch my nipples like they’re two buttons I can hold on to,” she tells him.
Ana explains that the abuse got worse. “He inserted his finger into my vagina with my panties” on at least two occasions, she said. “He said if he put his fingers in my vagina something might happen to me, he insisted there were people who were half unconscious, people who were vomiting.” Ana understood that there was something wrong and she did not want to continue these practices, but the feeling of belonging to this group and trust in the religious people held her back. Eventually, he managed to stop them: “It was very unpleasant and, although it was difficult, I ended up telling him that I didn’t want him to do that. The pastor stopped doing it.
“I never prayed for anyone in that way again,” the priest told him in his response letter. In 2010, the Diocese of Madrid revoked EGG’s status as an exorcist after a hidden camera video was broadcast for a program directed by Mercedes Milá. However, both in Ana’s case and in the one that another victim told elDiario.es, the alleged exorcisms lasted at least until 2013. Ana remembers this conflict between the priest and the authorities: “ When the program aired, everyone, including me, gave it our full support. And after a while, he started practicing them again.
In the group of friends who followed the religious during these years, the theme of exorcisms “was a bit taboo”. “Sometimes we asked him why he only did that with girls and not with boys, and he replied that it made him a little sick,” as if “the devil could only enter women.” “We never spoke clearly, but there was laughter, or comments when we heard screams in the house or when someone new arrived,” he remembers. “There were many of us at that time. » Some people have disappeared after a session. “If you were in “the world” (outside the group of followers), you disappeared. If you are with him, everything was fine.
Little by little, as she progressed in her therapy, as she became more confident in herself and after talking to her then partner and her psychologist, she felt less of a need to talk to him. and to have his support. Little by little, Ana moved away. “I had the strength to tell him that I no longer needed him.” He reacted with respect. “He didn’t move away. You just stopped going.” She lost almost all contact with him and those around him and gradually began to understand what was happening to her. Years later, I spoke to several loyal friends of this group to EGG and told them what had happened to me. One of them accused me of speaking ill of the father, according to him he was a saint and had helped many people if he had not helped me. not done good, it was not because of him, but because of something that belonged to me.” I felt no support and I felt judged.
During the pandemic, she took courage and wrote to EGG about what this separation meant: “I came to feel guilty for betraying you and telling you about it. » And it reminded him of a previous attempt to talk about what had happened. “I came to talk to you and tell you that your prayers were not good for me and that I did not agree with the way you did it.” “At first you told me you were worried about what I was going to tell you and that someone told you to be careful around me because I might have a hidden recorder. From the start, you made me feel bad, blaming me, like I was the bad guy. That day, Ana did not dare to be clear with the priest. Yes, he did so in the summer of 2020 in his letter: “This cannot be allowed. You can’t pretend like nothing happened. I don’t know what’s wrong with you and what kind of help you need. But what happened shouldn’t have happened.
In its response letter, EGG made the closest thing to a request for forgiveness for that meeting, but not for what happened over those seven years. “I’m really sorry that I didn’t know how to be more humble during our last meeting.” […] and I truly understand that this is not enough for you, having felt damaged by my actions. “This request for forgiveness does not compensate if it does not consider their practices as sexual and power abuse. He always placed himself above the world and he had divine truth,” says Ana.
For Ana, “it is essential to make visible these dynamics that occur within the Church and possibly in other areas. The situation is complex, because in many cases the abuse occurs without physical coercion, but with consent. At the same time, this occurs in hierarchical power relations, where it is very difficult to establish boundaries in the face of initiatives that violate personal boundaries and have a sexual dimension. The intention is to generate collective awareness so that we take greater responsibility and stop normalizing practices that involve an abuse of power and trust.
“No priest should insert his fingers into a woman’s vagina or apply oil to her bare breasts. “Not to cast out the demon or for any other reason,” concludes Ana, who, with a group of women, creates a community via the Web where they share their experiences in a safe space, recognizing that sometimes it is more difficult to face only these situations. , and seeking peer support can be essential.
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