MADRID (AP) — Spain's Catholic bishops and the Spanish government took another step Monday toward compensating victims of sexual abuse by clergy members who have died or whose possible crimes are too old to be prosecuted.
In January, Spain’s Catholic bishops agreed to let the country’s ombudsman have the final say in the church’s compensation of such victims. The government and Spain’s bishops signed paperwork Monday detailing how the new church-state reparation system, which takes effect April 15, would work.
The agreement, which envisages a one-year window for claims, marks a rare concession by the Catholic hierarchy. It's aimed at resolving disagreements between the left-wing government and church authorities over reparations after victims criticized the church’s original in-house compensation proposal.
Archbishop Luis Argüello, the president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, said the text will not include number amounts for the compensation that sexual abuse victims could receive.
“We wanted to exclude references to scales and quantities; that’s not what this is about,” Argüello said. “We’ve planned for the teams to start working on how to do it, but the text doesn’t establish a range or a specific amount.”
While church authorities in many Western European countries have created compensation plans for abuse victims, either run by the church or independent experts, the Spanish process is unusual because of the involvement of the state itself in the process.
Justice Minister Félix Bolaños on Monday said that the system would evaluate reparations case by case, based on factors like severity, the victim's age and the recurrence of the abuse.
"Criteria are set to arrive at fair compensation, which should not be determined by a single figure,” Bolaños said.
In recent years, the once staunchly Catholic Spain has begun to reckon with a decades-long legacy of abuse by priests and cover-up by generations of bishops and religious superiors, mainly thanks to the initial reporting by newspaper El País.
Spain’s Parliament tasked the country's ombudsman to investigate and in 2023 the ombudsman delivered a damning 800-page report that investigated 487 known cases of sexual abuse and included a survey that calculated the number of possible victims could reach the hundreds of thousands.
Spain’s bishops rejected that estimate, saying its own investigation had uncovered 728 sexual abusers within the church since 1945. It said that most of the crimes had occurred before 1990 and that 60% of the aggressors were now dead.
Under the new agreement, victims can approach Spain’s Justice Ministry with their initial petition. The ministry will pass it on to the ombudsman, who will study it and propose a compensation package that the church’s committee will then assess.
If no agreement can be reached with the church and the victim, the case will go to a joint committee with representatives of the church, the ombudsman’s office and victims’ associations. If that committee can’t agree, the ombudsman’s decision will stand, Bolaños said in January.
On Monday, Bolaños called the agreement a world first in which “the state has the final say and the church pays the reparations due to each victim.”
From left, Luis Arguello, the president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Angel Gabilondo, the Ombudsman and Felix Bolanos the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with Parliament after the signing of an agreement to provide redress to victims of time-barred abuse in Madrid, Spain, Monday, March 30, 2026. (Alberto Ortega/Europa Press via AP)
Frustrating security lines dwindled at U.S. airports on Monday, removing some of the worst bottlenecks as Transportation Safety Administration officers began receiving backpay for working during the government shutdown.
What was a four-hour checkpoint line at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport turned into a wait of 10 minutes or less on Monday. Wait times pushed beyond two hours at New York’s LaGuardia Airport Monday morning, but that appeared to be an exception, with normal waits at previous trouble spots such as Baltimore-Washington International Airport and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
After weeks of airport chaos, there was finally optimism for the beleaguered aviation system.
Weary travelers hope the overdue paychecks will end the seemingly endless security lines and missed flights that many experienced in recent weeks. It remains unknown how long it will take for wait times to normalize — and how long federal immigration officers will maintain a visible presence in airport terminals — as the busy spring break travel season continues.
TSA workers told union leadership Monday that they received some — but not all — of their back pay, according to Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of the TSA union. He said the rest, from a partial paycheck at the start of the shutdown, is expected by next week.
The TSA chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees also raised concerns that some employees reported incorrect backpay amounts, including missing overtime and improper tax withholdings.
The union also said the TSA updated its furlough policy on Sunday, removing guidance that allowed officers to request a furlough if they could not report to work for reasons tied to the shutdown, such as lack of transportation or childcare.
“Working without pay forced more than 500 officers to leave TSA and thousands were forced to call out,” acting TSA Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in announcing the delayed payday.
The union agreed with these numbers, but said those who could not afford to report for duty now “have disciplinary actions looming over their heads.”
“Backpay alone does not fix those problems,” the union said.
The AP emailed TSA and DHS seeking comment and additional details on the agency’s updated furlough guidance.
The DHS shutdown resulted in not only travel delays but also warnings of airport closures as TSA workers missing paychecks stopped going to work. Those workers were just recovering financially since last fall’s extended government shutdown.
President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA officers immediately to ease the lines plaguing airports. The move came after Trump rejected bipartisan congressional efforts to fund the TSA while negotiations continue with Democrats, who have refused to approve more funding without restraints on Trump’s immigration enforcement and mass deportation operations. The order left other DHS employees unpaid.
Democrats are demanding better identification for the officers, judicial warrants in some cases and for agents to refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches or other sensitive places. Republicans and the White House have been willing to negotiate on some points, but the sides have yet to reach a final agreement.
On Monday, there were few signs of progress on Capitol Hill, where the Senate held a short session without considering the House bill and resumed its two-week break. GOP Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota said afterward that Senate Republicans are talking with Democrats and also the House as they try to find a way to funding DHS.
The union again urged Congress to approve funding for the entire Department of Homeland Security. “To say we are utterly disgusted and disappointed with our elected officials is an understatement. Congress must come back to Washington, fix this crisis, and stop putting politics over people and vacation over values,” the union said.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Trump has offered to host an Easter Dinner at the White House for members of Congress who return to resolve the impasse. As for the Democrats' demands, she said that despite a change in leadership at DHS with Markwayne Mullin replacing Kristi Noem, “There has not been a change in policy.”
“It has always been the policy of this president and this administration to deport the worst of the worst illegal alien criminals,” Leavitt said.
TSA employees had gone without pay since DHS funding lapsed in February. The department’s shutdown reached 44 days on Sunday, eclipsing the record 43-day shutdown last fall that affected all of the federal government.
The DHS shutdown has resulted in not only travel delays but also warnings of airport closures as TSA workers missing paychecks stopped going to work. Those workers had already endured the nation’s longest government shutdown last fall. Multiple airports experienced greater than 40% callout rates, and nearly 500 of the agency’s nearly 50,000 transportation security officers quit during the shutdown.
Trump deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to some airports a week ago to help with security as TSA callouts rose nationwide. How long they stay, White House border czar Tom Homan said, depends on how quickly TSA employees return to work. A TSA statement said the agency “has immediately begun the process of paying its workforce,” with paychecks arriving “as early as Monday.”
The overall absentee rate among TSA officers scheduled to work dipped slightly on Sunday, according to DHS. The highest were concentrated at major airports that have seen consistently elevated absences lately.
Those included BWI, both of Houston’s main airports; Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans; and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Associated Press reporters Rio Yamat in Las Vegas and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed.
A TSA agent hands a passport back to a passenger at the security checkpoint in Pittsburgh International Airport Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
A TSA agent hands a passport back to a passenger at the security checkpoint in Pittsburgh International Airport Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Travelers wait in long security checkpoint lines at George Bush Intercontinental Airport Friday, March 27, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
A traveler reaches for a bottle of water being handed out while waiting in a security checkpoint line at George Bush Intercontinental Airport Friday, March 27, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Airline passengers make their way through the security lines, next to a closed screening area, in Terminal C at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Houston. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)
A traveler moves in view of an air traffic control tower at Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Friday, March 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
