Keys to the scandal of sexual abuse in the Portuguese Church: at least 5,000 minors were victims

At least 5,000 minors were abused by priests who they took advantage of the silence of the victims and the “culture of hiding” of the Catholic hierarchy in Portugal. These are the main conclusions of the report presented in Lisbon by the independent commission created by the Episcopal Conference of Portugal that for a year has investigated the abuses that have occurred within the Portuguese Catholic Church since 1950. The report -of some 500 pages- confirms that Portugal was no exception and that, as in neighboring countries, abuses were a practice for years, especially between the 1960s and 1990s.

“There was a culture of concealment” in the Church for decades, denounced one of the members of the commission today. Only 25 cases have been referred to the Prosecutor’s Office. 95% have already prescribed. Below are the keys to this historic report in Portugal which, according to the president of the Episcopal Conference, marks “the beginning of a new beginning” in combating and preventing pedophilia in the institution. Six experts make up this Independent Commission (IC)led by the child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht and created by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP) at the end of 2021 to investigate the dimension of pedophilia in the Portuguese Catholic Church.

The researchers -psychologists, sociologists, lawyers and a filmmaker- have based their work on testimonies from the victims and on information from the Church’s archives, to which they only had access last October, ten months after the process began. The CI received some 600 testimonials, of which it validated 512. From them, he concludes that there is a network of at least 4,815 victims., although he admits that “it is not possible to quantify the total number of crimes”. The victims began to be abused between the ages of 10 and 14. The average age is barely 11 years old, lower than in the cases of neighboring countries. The reason, according to experts, is the specific weight of the seminars in the second half of the 20th century in the country.

57% of the victims were boys and the rest were girls. Today the majority is around 52 years of age and around 20% are in their 40s.. 95% of crimes have prescribed. At the time of the first abuse, 58.6% of the victims lived with their parents. On average, the victims took 10 years to tell. Half told their family. Men tend to talk to their spouse or friends. Women, mainly with their mothers. Many of the victims first discussed the issue with the commission’s experts. 96% of abusers were men and an “overwhelming majority”, 77%, were priests. In 46.7% of the situations, the abusers were people close to the victim.

The age of the aggressors determined the abuses. The younger ones more frequently practiced penetration in isolated spaces. Among the elderly, other abuses predominate in the confessional or in church spaces. Many of the abusers denounced by the victims in this investigation are still active. The commission prepares a list that it will not make public and will transfer to the Prosecutor’s Office. By areas, the crimes were registered throughout the country, with special incidence in Lisbon, Porto and Braga, and affected victims of all social classes. The abuses occurred in seminaries, churches -including areas such as the altar or the sacristy-, reception centers, schools or sports institutions.

They include abuses of all kinds: penetration, anal, oral sex, manipulation of sexual organs, masturbation and advances. Most of the victims were repeatedly abused. On average for one year, although there are cases in which the offense lasted up to seven years. The experts propose creating a new commission to continue the investigation of abuses in the Church. They ask to modify the law so that, regardless of the age of the minor when he is abused, he can report until he is 30 years old. Currently in Portugal it is allowed to report crimes suffered in childhood up to the age of 23. The commission asks that the Catholic Church assume the cost of the psychiatric and psychological treatment of the victims. It also asks civil society for a national study on the sexual abuse of minors in the different spaces of socialization.