The president of Portugal, the conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, apologized on Thursday for his controversial statements about pederasty in the Catholic Church after declaring that the number of registered cases did not seem "high". After numerous criticisms, Rebelo de Sousa was forced to say that he did not intend to offend the victims.
On Tuesday, the head of state said that it did not seem "particularly high" that more than 400 cases of abuse had been detected in Portugal "because in other countries with shorter horizons there were thousands of cases."
"My intention was not to offend when I said what I said. But, if any victim is offended, even one, I apologize for that," he said in statements two days after his controversial statements.
Rebelo de Sousa -a practicing Catholic- insisted this Thursday that his "goal" was not to offend, but "exactly the opposite, to fear that many victims, out of fear, had not spoken and the number, which should be even higher, remained where stayed".
Faced with the avalanche of criticism, the Presidency issued a statement to qualify the comment and Rebelo de Sousa himself came out to clarify what he described as "misinterpretation" on television, although until now he had not apologized.
The president had the support of the prime minister, the socialist António Costa: "I wanted to express my total solidarity with the president for the unacceptable interpretation that has been made of his words." And he added that "all" the Portuguese know that for Rebelo de Sousa a single case of child abuse is "unacceptable."
