Portugal Catholic clergy sexually abused nearly 5,000 minors in past 70 years: Report
Nearly 5,000 children have been sexually abused by members of the Portuguese Catholic Church over the past 70 years, according to an independent commission’s final report.
The Portuguese inquiry, commissioned by the Church in the staunchly Catholic country, published the shocking findings on Monday after hearing from more than 500 victims abused since 1950.
"These testimonies allow us to reach to a much more extensive victim network, calculated at a minimum number, absolute minimum, of 4815 victims,” commission head Pedro Strecht, a child psychiatrist, told a press conference in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.
Stressing that most of the perpetrators, 77%, were priests and most of the victims were men, Strecht said the victims were abused in Catholic schools, priests' homes and confessionals, among other locations.
"The majority of victims leave the church as an institution and stop practicing the religion after the abuse and this is passed on to the next generations," the commission head added.
The six-member Portuguese commission initiated the investigation in January last year after a report in France revealed around 3,000 priests and religious officials sexually abused over 200,000 children.
Bishop Jose Ornelas, the head of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP), said he would respond to the commission’s findings later on Monday.
The country's bishops are scheduled to convene in March to draw conclusions from the report and "rid the Church of this scourge as much as possible," said Father Manuel Barbosa, a senior CEP member.
Similar inquiries have been launched in several countries in addition to Portugal, including Australia, France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.
Faced with a multitude of clergy sex abuse cases that have surfaced worldwide and the accusations of cover-ups, Pope Francis promised in 2019 to eliminate paedophilia from the Catholic Church.
The pontiff is expected to meet some of the Portuguese victims when he visits Lisbon in August.
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