At least 4815 minors were victims of sexual abuse within the Portuguese Church. This is the main conclusion of this report, written by six independent experts, and directed by a child psychiatrist, Pedro Strecht. This number is undoubtedly much lower than the reality. This is the “absolutely minimum” number, is the formula used by the report. The commission has worked for a year and heard more than 500 direct testimonies. She went back far in time, until 1950. She estimates that the victims were rather young boys, at 53%. And therefore also young girls, at 47%.
In three-quarters of the cases, the sexual violence was committed by a priest and in the remaining quarter by other Church personnel. All regions of the country have been affected, in particular the large cities of Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Leiria, Santarem. The abuses often occurred in confessionals and even more so in seminaries and Catholic schools, “black spots” of pedophilia in the Church. This is the vocabulary used by the report. The most recent cases have been sent to justice: 25 cases so far. But the list of victims and alleged perpetrators remains confidential. It appears in an appendix to the report, which will be forwarded to the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference.
The “black point” of seminaries and Catholic schools
This relationship is all the more important since Portugal is therefore very Catholic: more than 80% of the 10 million Portuguese define themselves as Catholic. The decline is regular, it was more than 95% 50 years ago. And regular practitioners are only 30%. But it remains considerable, one of the highest rates in Europe with Croatia and Poland. The number of seminarians has even increased slightly in recent years and the Catholic Church continues to welcome more than 100,000 pupils or students in its institutions. This situation undoubtedly explains the relatively late reaction of the Portuguese Church on this subject of pedophilia, a little later in any case than in Germany, the Netherlands or France, where we remember the report of the Commission Saved a year and a half ago. The witnesses met by the Portuguese experts tell how difficult it is to talk about the subject and how much they had the impression of being ignored by the Catholic hierarchy. The Portuguese Episcopal Conference must examine the report in an extraordinary assembly from Friday March 3. And Pope Francis, who four years ago called for an “all-out battle” against this scourge of pedophilia in the Church, will travel to Lisbon next summer for World Youth Day. He should meet several victims there.
The debate over the statute of limitations for child sex crimes
The report also raises the question of the evolution of the law in Portugal and in particular the question of the statute of limitations for these sexual crimes. It is limited to 15 years for assaulting a minor under the age of 14, and 10 years for assaulting a teenager between 14 and 16 years old. The report published this morning recommends increasing the prescription to 30 years. He also suggests increasing the penalties, which can now go up to 10 years in prison. The rest therefore depends on both the conference of bishops and the government of socialist Antonio Costa.