Most of the Portuguese priests suspected of acts of pedophilia in the independent commission on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church continue in their functions a month after the report was made public that estimates 4,815 victims in the last 70 years.
The resistance of the Episcopal Conference and part of the dioceses to take precautionary measures, as well as the refusal to assume institutional responsibility for what happened, generate scandal and criticism from the most diverse sectors, such as Christian organizations, the independent commission itself, political parties , including the right, and the President of the Republic himself.
In the scandal at the beginning of this century for the sexual abuse of priests in the state of Massachusetts, famous through the movie Spotlight, there was a relevant Portuguese imprint. Michael Rezendes, one of the main authors of the Boston Globe investigation, is the grandson of an emigrant from the Azores, where Tony Cabral was born, a state representative who chaired the commission that ended up forcing religious organizations to report child abuse cases to the civil authorities. A few months ago, when the investigation was already underway in Portugal, Rezendes told the Lusa news agency that the wave of scandals will reach all the countries where the Catholic Church is based.
Portugal is not only part of this group of states, but is also one of those with the greatest presence in Europe. In addition, it prepares the Pope’s visit to Lisbon in August for World Youth Day. In this way, there were not only structural conditions that were already explosive, due to the social relevance of the Church in Portugal, but also conjunctural ones. However, since the report was presented on February 13 with those 4,815 cases of sexual abuse of minors since 1950, the ecclesiastical authorities have shown little willingness to act accordingly, although in a climate of great division.
On Thursday night on public television RTP, the most popular Portuguese political commentator for decades reappeared to harshly criticize the Episcopal Conference for “doing everything backwards”. The commentator is none other than the current President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who, at a time when his once very high popularity is falling, briefly recovered his old television role.
One of the factors in this discredit of the president comes from statements in which he downplayed the number of complaints of sexual abuse in the Church. He later assured that he said it as an “encouragement”. But in any case, this week he took charge of the criticism, which he specified that he made as head of state, because as a Catholic he would be much harsher. He expressed his disagreement with the fact that the Episcopal Conference took twenty days to react, that it said that it was taking two months to reflect and, above all, for “not assuming responsibility”, as if the acts of the priests were a particular matter of their own and not the institution.
Conservative Rebelo de Sousa also expressed his astonishment at the lack of “preventive measures.” The application of the precautionary suspension to the religious who appear in the report has become the main focus of controversy, along with the refusal of the Catholic hierarchy to compensate the victims, which only offers to pay for the treatments.
The president of the independent commission, Pedro Strecht, announced in February that the number of active religious who are part of the list delivered to the Portuguese Church is well over one hundred. However, throughout this week some dioceses have reported that several have already died, others have retired and there is no news of some. In this way, the real number of those who continue to exercise the priesthood is unknown, which may be substantially less than the one considered by the commission.
For example, in the Patriarchate of Lisbon a list of 24 names was received, but according to this body only five priests are still active. As the Patriarch Cardinal Manuel Clemente had already advanced, Lisbon refuses to suspend these religious in a precautionary manner.
And in Porto, the other large city in the country, the bishopric has adopted the same position, in this case with seven priests suspected of committing sexual abuse whom it maintains in office. On the other hand, in other dioceses, such as Évora, Guarda and Braga, precautionary measures were taken against five religious.
