The Portuguese Catholic Church is not going to separate for now the priests who are still active suspected of having sexually abused minors and will make their names available to the dioceses so that they study the cases and act according to “civil and canonical norms”.
“We cannot remove someone from a ministry just because a person comes saying that he is an abuser,” the president of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP), José Ornelas, said today at a press conference in Fatima after the assembly that brought together the bishops to study measures, in which he also ruled out compensation for the victims.
“There was a culture of hiding” abuses by the Portuguese Catholic Church, said former Portuguese minister Alvaro Laborinho, one of the commission’s experts.
“There was unequivocally concealment,” insisted the former Justice Minister, a member of the independent commission that has investigated for a year the abuses that have occurred within the Portuguese Catholic Church since 1950.
The commission of experts released its final report in February, in which it estimates that there are at least 4,800 victims, and gave the bishops a list of 100 suspected abusers who are still active.
Ornelas promised that this list will have “due follow-up” by the bishops of each diocese, but insisted that it is necessary to study each case and that the document is only “a list of names”, which makes investigations difficult.
“Without knowing who denounced and why they denounced it, it is very difficult,” said Ornelas, who even so promised that “name by name” will be analyzed: “If there were other documents that come to us to identify the person and what they did wrong, Obviously we will take action,” he said.
More than 200 citizens and Catholic institutions have asked the CEP that the bishops who covered up cases of sexual abuse of minors withdraw from their functions in the next 60 days and that those suspected of active abuse be suspended “with a preventive nature.”
Questioned about these requests, Ornelas insisted that “no one is guilty before being tried” and that it is necessary to “find those cases and see the truth of the facts.”
The president of the CEP also ruled out compensation for the victims by the Church, as has been done in other countries: “If someone has acted badly, that someone is responsible.”
The bishops gathered in the assembly agreed to create a new commission within the Church to receive testimonies from victims, in which there will also be members from outside the institution.
“Our goal is to have credibility with the victims,” ??said the president of the CEP, who will also give them “spiritual, psychological, and psychiatric” support.
In addition, the guidelines and training plans of seminaries and other institutions will be reviewed and “preparation for all pastoral agents” will be given on the issue of abuses.
During World Youth Day, to be held in Lisbon next August, a memorial will be built for the victims, which will then be “perpetuated” in an area outside the Episcopal Conference.