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The diocese of Cádiz denied accusations against Zornoza but confirmed the investigation was being carried out
Nicole WinfieldSaturday 22 November 2025 13:41 GMT
open image in galleryPope Leo XIV leaves at the end of an audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Choirs in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
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Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of a Spanish bishop under investigation for allegedly sexually abusing a young seminarian in the 1990s. This marks the first known instance of the new pontiff removing a cleric accused of abuse.
A one-line Vatican statement confirmed Leo's acceptance of the resignation of Cádiz Bishop Rafael Zornoza, 76. While no reason was given, Bishop Zornoza had submitted his resignation last year upon turning 75, the standard retirement age for bishops.
It hadn't been accepted though until the El País newspaper reported earlier this month that Zornoza had been recently placed under investigation by a church tribunal. The daily, which since 2018 has exposed decades of abuse and cover-up in the Spanish Catholic Church, said Zornoza was accused of abusing a young former seminarian while he was a young priest and directed the diocesan seminary in Getafe.
The report, quoting a letter the former seminarian wrote the Vatican over the summer, said Zornoza fondled him and regularly slept with him from when he was 14-21 years old. The former seminarian’s letter said Zornoza heard his confession and persuaded him to see a psychiatrist to “cure” his homosexuality.
The diocese of Cádiz denied the accusations against Zornoza but confirmed the investigation was being carried out by the church court in Madrid known as the Rota. In a Nov. 10 statement, the diocese said Zornoza was cooperating with the investigation and had suspended his agenda temporarily “to clarify the facts and to undergo treatment for an aggressive form of cancer.”
“The accusations made, referring to events that took place almost 30 years ago, are very serious and also false,” the statement said.
It is believed to be the first publicly known case of a bishop being retired, and being placed under investigation for alleged abuse abuse, since the Spanish church began reckoning in recent years with a decades-long legacy of abuse and cover-up that have rocked the once-staunchly Catholic Spain.
open image in galleryPope Leo XIV arrives for an audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Choirs in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)Leo didn't immediately name a temporary leader of the diocese.
In 2023, Spain’s first official probe of abuse indicated that the number of victims could run into hundreds of thousands, based on a survey that was part of a report by the office of Spain’s ombudsman. The ombudsman conducted an 18-month independent investigation of 487 cases involving alleged victims who spoke with the ombudsman’s team.
Spain’s Catholic bishops apologized but dismissed the interpretations of the ombudsman report as a “lie,” arguing that many more people had been abused outside of the church.
The Spanish Catholic hierarchy then did its own report, saying in 2024 that it had found evidence of 728 sexual abusers within the church since 1945. It then launched a plan to compensate victims, after Spain’s government approved a plan to force the church to pay economic reparations.
