Bishop Jose Ornelas Carvalho, Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, February 13, 2023. PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP
The Portuguese bishops are meeting on Friday March 3 in the city-sanctuary of Fatima (center) to decide on the measures to be taken following the shock caused by the publication of an independent report on the extent of sexual violence committed by members of the clergy against minors.
A press conference is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. (local time and Paris time) at the end of an extraordinary plenary assembly of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP) exclusively devoted to the analysis of the report made public on February 13 by a commission charged by the bishops to shed light on the phenomenon of pedocrime within the Church.
Violence concealed in a “systemic” way
After collecting more than 500 testimonies in the space of a year, this group of independent experts established that at least 4,815 minors had been victims of sexual violence in a religious context since 1950. This violence was concealed by the hierarchy of the Church in a waysystemic“, they added in their conclusions. “We apologize to all the victims», had reacted immediately after the publication of the report the president of the CEP, the bishop of Leiria-Fatima, José Ornelas.
“When faced with abuses, especially those committed by members of the Church, it is not enough to ask for forgiveness“, however, said Pope Francis in a message posted Thursday on Twitter. “The pain and wounds of the victims can only begin to heal if they find answers and concrete actions capable of repairing the horrors suffered and preventing their recurrence.“, added the Argentine sovereign pontiff in a video where he speaks in Spanish.
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Faced with the thousands of cases of sexual violence involving priests coming to light around the world and accusations of a cover-up by members of the clergy, Pope Francis promised in 2019 to deliver a “total battleagainst pedophilia within the Church. In its report, the independent commission which investigated pedocrime within the Portuguese Church made several recommendations to the ecclesiastical leaders gathered in Fatima.
In particular, she suggested the creation of a new commission which could monitor this theme, respect for a “moral duty to reportof sexual aggressors and the abolition of closed confessionals, one of the places where this violence was often committed. In an open letter made public on Thursday, several organizations and personalities from progressive Catholic circles called on the bishops to implement the essence of these suggestions and to organize “a solemn and collective momentto apologize to the victims.
“Concealing Bishops”
This group, a good part of which had already called for the constitution of the independent commission at the end of 2021, is also in favor of the departure of the “concealing bishopsand the suspension of clergy suspected of sexual abuse who are still serving the Church. On the occasion of the episcopal assembly of Fatima, the independent commission must give the bishops on Friday a list of the alleged attackers cited in the testimonies collected by the experts.
The commission also plans to send the public prosecutor a list of alleged attackers still active in religious institutions. “Time to be accountable“, headlined Friday in the front page of the daily reference public. “The Church chooses either the victims or the aggressors“, summarized in his editorial the deputy director of the newspaper, Amilcar Correia, evoking the effect “devastatingof the independent report for a country where 80% of the population define themselves as Catholic.
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