DOJ Investigates 14 Cases of Sexual Abuse in Church Contexts

The Public Prosecutor’s Office (OP) has opened 14 investigations into alleged sexual abuse in the context of the Catholic Church and has archived a further 26 since 2022, the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGR) said on Wednesday.

According to the PGR report sent to Lusa, the complaints were sent by the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse of Children in the Catholic Church, the Commission for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons of the Lisbon Patriarchate, VITA Group and other complainants. In total, the deputy is investigating 14 requests, archiving 31, of which 26 were sent by three organizations and the rest by other means.

The Independent Commission of Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church of Portugal sent 25 complaints to members of parliament, prompting 15 investigations, of which only three remain under investigation, with the remaining 12 already archived.

Reasons for archiving these cases include the lack of sufficient evidence that a crime was committed, ignorance of the identity of the victims or aggressors subjected to violence, the statute of limitations, lack of evidence, the death of the accused, or even the conclusion that the facts under investigation have already been assessed in court.

The Commission for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons of the Lisbon Patriarchate sent four complaints, which led to the opening of seven investigations, but of these only one remains under investigation, while the remaining six cases were closed.

The complaint filed by this subject was based on lack of evidence, the statute of limitations, the inability to establish a situation of sexual assault by the alleged aggressor, and the fact that the case was already being investigated as part of another investigation.

Since VITA began operations in May of this year, it has reported 16 reports of alleged church sexual abuse to authorities, resulting in 15 investigations. However, eight of them have already been archived, and seven are still under investigation.

The vast majority of these cases – seven out of eight – were closed due to the statute of limitations, while another investigation was closed due to the lack of a complaint from the victim, who was already an adult.

In addition to complaints from these organizations, PGR is highlighting other individual cases of allegations of sex crimes related to the Church, including one received through the Presidency of the Republic, including three more investigations that are still under investigation.

Among these complaints, one filed by a member of the Catholic Church stands out, which was archived by the Sintra deputy because its statute of limitations had already expired and the situation reported by the Presidency was still under investigation.

An independent commission led by child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht confirmed 512 of the 564 testimonies received, extrapolating a minimum number of victims to 4,815. The testimony relates to cases that occurred between 1950 and 2022, the period covered by the commission’s work.

The VITA group, coordinated by psychologist Rute Agulhas, came into being in April following the work of the Independent Commission and within the framework of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference to monitor and prevent situations of sexual abuse against children and vulnerable adults in the context of the Catholic Church. . In the first six months of operation, 64 victims and one suspected assailant were identified.