The independent commission that investigates sexual abuse in Portuguese Catholic Church institutions estimates that there are at least 4,815 victims.
The commission's report was delivered this Sunday, in Lisbon, by the team led by the child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht to the president of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference, the Bishop of Leiria-Fátima José Ornelas.
Strecht, coordinator of the commission, revealed this Monday, at a press conference, that they have validated 512 testimonies from victims of sexual abuse, out of a total of 564 testimonies received, and they estimate that the number of victims is 4,815, "at least". .
"There was a culture of hiding" abuses by the Portuguese Catholic Church, said former Portuguese minister Alvaro Laborinho, one of the commission's experts. "There was unequivocally concealment," insisted the former Justice Minister, a member of the independent commission that has investigated for a year the abuses that have occurred within the Portuguese Catholic Church since 1950.
"I do not fail to see in various members of the Church today a desire to return to this culture, but there is also a willingness to open up," added Laborinho. A desire, he said, that is reflected, for example, in the work of this independent commission, created by the Episcopal Conference.
"Instead of drawing blood for this concealment," he added, "it is important to look ahead, for a more open process." The important thing, she stressed, is that "it is unequivocal that in the Catholic Church sexual abuses were committed, in a minimalist reading, close to 5,000."
"And the abuses that occurred in the Church are one thing and it would be another thing if they continued from now on," he said. "We hope that is not the case," she settled.
In his first reaction to the report, Bishop José Ornelas, president of the Episcopal Conference of Portugal (CEP), stated: "we want it to be the beginning of a new beginning." "It is a dramatic situation that we are experiencing, it is not easy to overcome," admitted the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, who wanted to send a message to the victims: "We did this for them too," he said, referring to the creation of this independent commission.
The sociologist Ana de Almeida also trusted a change after the investigation and complained about the delay in opening the Church archives to experts -they were only opened in October, ten months after the start of the process, she explained- and for the silence of bishops and priests on the subject.
Almeida, a member of the commission, invited the Church to "speak up" to prevent abuse and was surprised by the fear of some members of the Catholic hierarchy that the problem could spread to World Youth Day (WYD). , scheduled for August in Lisbon with the visit of Pope Francis.
"Is there or is there not a better place to talk" about the subject, the expert wondered. "This is an absolutely central issue for the Church" and it should "integrate this speech into WYD," she defended. In the conclusions of her bulky report - some 500 pages - the experts also ask the Church to assume the cost of psychological care for the victims.
During a year of investigation, the independent commission checked 512 testimonies from which it can be deduced that the number of real victims of abuse in the Portuguese Church is close to 5,000 "at least".
The dimension and violence of the problem is similar to that of neighboring countries, although in Portugal the abuses begin at an earlier age, barely 11 years old on average, due, according to experts, to the specific weight that the seminars had in the country in the second half of the 20th century.
The abused minors are mostly children, forced into churches, seminaries, parish houses, shelters and schools. Most of the minors were repeatedly abused, for an average of one year and up to seven years in some cases. The profile of the abuser is male (96%), a priest (77%) and close to his victims.
Silence protected the attackers. Almost half of the victims spoke for the first time about the abuses in this commission. The work of this team concluded this Monday but the experts asked the Portuguese Church to create another similar commission to continue the investigation.
