Catholic priests in Portugal have abused nearly 5,000 children since 1950, an independent commission said on Monday after hearing hundreds of victims’ accounts.
Thousands of reports of pedophilia in the Catholic Church have emerged around the world and Pope Francis is under pressure to address the scandal.
The Portuguese inquiry, commissioned by the Church in the strongly Catholic country, published its findings after hearing from more than 500 victims last year.
“This testimony allows us to establish a larger network of victims, at least 4,815,” commission head Pedro Strecht said at a press conference in Lisbon attended by several senior Church officials.
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Strecht, a child psychiatrist, said that it is now difficult for Portugal to ignore the existence of child sex abuse or the trauma it causes.
The head of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP), Bishop Jose Ornelas, will respond to the findings on Monday.
The bishops of the country will gather in March to draw conclusions from the report and “remove the Church from this scourge as much as possible”, Father Manuel Barbosa, a senior member of the CEP, said in January.
Faced with numerous cases of clerical sex abuse that have become known around the world and accusations of a cover-up, Pope Francis has promised in 2019 to eradicate pedophilia in the Catholic Church.
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Inquiries have been opened in several countries besides Portugal, including Australia, France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.
The Pope may meet some Portuguese victims when he visits Lisbon in August, the capital’s auxiliary bishop, Americo Aguiar, said recently.
– ‘The Catholic Church must purify itself’ –
The time limit for bringing charges has expired for the majority of offenses recorded by Strecht’s six-member commission but 25 cases have been transferred to the prosecution service.
One of them is “Alexandra”, a 43-year-old woman who requested anonymity. She said she was raped by a priest during her confession when she was a 17-year-old novice nun.
“It’s very difficult to talk about these things in Portugal,” a country where 80 percent of people profess to be Catholic, said Alexandra, who is now a mother and works as a kitchen maid.
“I kept it a secret for many years, but it became more and more difficult to cope with myself,” he told AFP in a telephone interview last week.
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Three years ago, she had the courage to report her attacker to Church authorities.
But he said he was “overlooked”. The bishop in charge did nothing but send a complaint to the Vatican, which still hasn’t responded.
In April last year, Manuel Clemente, the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon and Portugal’s top prelate, said he was ready to “confess his past mistakes” and ask for “forgiveness” from the victims.
“The bishop’s apology means nothing to me. We don’t know if he is right,” replied Alexandra, who said she was “hurt” by the Church and its cover-up of abuse.
An independent commission, at least, has given him an understanding ear and psychological support.
This, he said, is a “good first step” for victims who want to “break down the wall of silence” that surrounds them.
“This has been going on for a long time,” said Strecht of another anonymous victim. “The Church must purify itself.”