The Association of Church Victims welcomes the “belated but positive step” within the VITA Group compensation project

The Coração Silenciado Association, which represents victims of sexual abuse in the Church, welcomed this Monday the announcement that VITA Group will present a project to compensate victims, considering it “a late step, but fortunately a positive one.”

“This is a small step that we have been waiting for a long time. Until now, the Church has talked about reparations for victims, but has not implemented anything, and we have insisted on the need for compensation, which is the only way to compensate for the damage.” victims whose injury was not prescribed. Regardless of any regulations, compensation for victims for moral, physical and psychological damage is fair,” said António Grosso, director of the association.

In a conversation with Lusa, António Grosso recalled that victims emphasized the importance of the issue of compensation, regardless of the statute of limitations for sexual violence, and stressed that “it does not require much creativity” to determine a financial compensation scheme, since it has already happened in other countries.

“The Church must offer some amount that will allow it to publicly declare that it has X thousand or millions of euros to compensate the victims,” he said, adding that “the state will also bear some responsibility, since according to the constitution it is about protecting children and youth. Let’s see what the state will do in light of the recommendations of the European Union itself.”

António Grosso highlighted the meeting of the Coração Silenciado association with the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP) about a month ago and acknowledged that it may have given impetus to the issue of compensation for victims, but also pointed to the argument about prescriptions.

“There are countries where there is no prescription for sexual offenses against minors, and Portugal should follow this example. And if there is any organization that should start the work, then it is the Church. Know that this is God’s law. There are no recipes,” he said.

The leader of the Corazán Silenciado referred to positions already expressed by Pope Francis or the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in meetings they both held with representatives of victims of sexual abuse in the Church.

“It makes no sense to talk about recipes. D. José Ornelas spoke several times about prescriptions, which is a legal issue, and that some crimes have already expired, etc. For us, there can be no prescription, no matter what. what should be in the law. As Pope Francis says, pain does not prescribe,” he concluded.

On Monday, the VITA group announced that this month it will submit, at the request of the CEP, a proposal for financial compensation for victims of sexual abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church.

The structure, coordinated by psychologist Rute Agulhas, arose from the work of the Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, led by pediatric psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, which, over the course of almost a year, verified 512 testimonies of cases occurring between 1950 and 2022, indicating that by extrapolation to a minimum number of victims of 4815 people.