Lucrezia Ciotti Alvaro Del Cristo Godoy, 65, has decided to speak out about the sexual abuse and violence he claims to have suffered as a child at the San Juan de Dios center in the Canary Islands. While awaiting euthanasia, authorized due to his serious health conditions, the man has chosen to break a silence of over fifty years to seek justice and give voice to his unresolved pain.
"Destroyed Childhood," Alvaro's story of abuse and violence: his account before his death
" Before I die, I wanted to tell everything ." These are the words with which Alvaro Del Cristo Godoy, 65, decided to go public with his dramatic experience of sexual abuse and physical violence as a child . The man, a resident of the Valencian Community, obtained authorization for euthanasia from the competent commission due to pain described as " chronic, irreversible, and irremediable ."
The date set for the procedure is February 11, 2027. Before reaching this moment, he chose to entrust his testimony to the Spanish newspaper El País , in the hope of finally obtaining a hearing and justice for what he experienced as a child.
The story dates back to 1972 , when Alvaro was about 11 years old and attended the San Juan de Dios centre in Gran Canaria, a facility intended for the education and assistance of minors with disabilities or in conditions of social fragility.
Having lost his father at the age of five, the boy suffered from ADHD and a knee problem, later identified as osteochondritis dissecans. It was his mother who enrolled him in the school, unaware of what would happen. According to the victim's account, it was there that he was abused by the man who ran the infirmary at the time , while the cafeteria manager helped restrain him during a sexual assault.
Godoy recalled initially witnessing episodes that frightened him, without being able to fully comprehend their gravity. Later, the man allegedly took advantage of his vulnerability, presenting himself as a father figure and convincing him to undergo a supposed medical checkup. The child recounts being sexually assaulted and trying in vain to free himself until the fire alarm interrupted the episode. Before letting him go, according to his testimony, the man allegedly threatened him , insisting that what had happened should be kept a secret and invoking God's will and the safety of his family.
" They destroyed my childhood, they made me a distrustful person. I lived in fear and shame ," Godoy told El País . " I was an abused child with a shattered life, and I don't want to die with this burden inside me ."
The complaints, the silence of the institutions and the new investigations into Alvaro's story
The alleged sexual assaults were accompanied by serious physical abuse. Godoy told El País that the man had beaten him in front of the other children , sustaining injuries to his nose and ribs, and that he had been thrown down a slope approximately three meters high. Despite mobility difficulties, he later managed to walk home on crutches. His mother, meanwhile, had been contacted by the facility and informed of her son's alleged problematic behavior. When the boy tried to tell her what he claimed to have suffered, according to his testimony, he was not believed.
At 16, while hospitalized for knee surgery, Godoy allegedly tried to report the assaults to the center's director, but his concerns were ignored. He was advised to interpret the priest's behavior differently. He was also told that the man had been transferred to Africa. The Hospital Order later confirmed the transfer to Cameroon in 1977 and the priest's departure from the institution in December of that year , without disclosing the reasons for these decisions.
In 2017, after many years of silence, Godoy attempted to formally report the abuse to the diocese of the Canary Islands. The matter returned to the forefront in April 2026, when he filed a complaint with the Defensor del Pueblo, the Spanish institution responsible for defending citizens' rights, and also contacted the child protection agencies of the diocese of Valencia and the Hospitaller Order.
On October 9, 2026 , the Order of San Juan de Dios announced that it had suspended the religious man from his duties and initiated canonical proceedings against him , according to the Spanish newspaper.
For Godoy, speaking publicly has above all a personal meaning: breaking a decades-long silence and ensuring his experience remains unknown. " Telling my story is a way to seek justice and no longer feel alone ," he explained.