MADRID (AP) — After decades of neglect, victims of sexual abuse by the Spanish clergy say that they are finally seeing momentum building in their quest for real accountability and reparations.

On Tuesday, Spanish lawmakers took the first step toward opening a parliamentary inquiry on the issue, a move that victims hail as a potential game-changer.

Prosecutors are also stepping up efforts to dig deeper into existing and new allegations. And Spain’s left-to-center government is gauging whether to back the parliamentary probe or to launch another independent effort.

“It looks like as if public institutions have finally realized that the raping of children is of general interest, a grave violation of human rights and that the state should intervene,” said Miguel Hurtado, who has campaigned against impunity since disclosing his own account of being abused at a monastery in northeastern Spain.

“We can't say we are happy until we see results, but this is a very hopeful moment for those of us fighting to be noticed for years,” said Fernando García Salmones, spokesman of the Robbed Childhood Association of sexual abuse victims.

García Salmones, who is among the few victims who have received compensation from a religious order, said that the question is no longer whether Spain should investigate the abuses. The debate, he said, has shifted: “Now it's more about how to do it, and who should do it.”

The stacking up of different initiatives comes after Spain's leading newspaper, El País, documented at least 611 cases of abuses perpetrated by priests, members of religious orders and people working for them over several decades, involving at least 1,246 victims.

In late December, the paper shared a list including some of the abuses it had found with Pope Francis, who has tried to sensitize the church to the problem of clergy abuse and passed laws to hold the hierarchy accountable for covering it up.

The Vatican hasn’t publicly responded to the El País reports or the database. Previously, it has commented after independent reports have produced their findings.

But Spanish media have reported that the pope breached the topic during a meeting last month with emissaries of the Spanish Episcopal Conference.

The body representing the bishops of all Spain has rejected opening up a comprehensive investigation and instead encourages victims to come forward and report their allegations to offices that it has set up in each of the country's dioceses.