The President of the Assembly of the Republic said this Saturday that he hopes that the Portuguese Catholic Church will know how to solve the problem of sexual violence and that the perpetrators will take the necessary measures to turn the page.
At Oliveira do Hospital in the district of Coimbra, where he was to open the Festa do Queijo, Augusto Santos Silva said that the Portuguese Catholic Church was “stricken by a terrible scandal” and that he hoped that those responsible for “taking the necessary steps to to turn the page.”
“I believe the Church knows how to overcome this problem by taking action. There are several proposals that have been made both within the Church and in an independent commission, and I believe that the responsible persons will take the necessary steps so that this page can be published. turned around,” he said.
Emphasizing that it is necessary to separate “secular institutions and complex situations,” the second highest official of the state stressed that the country needs the Catholic Church.
“Not from a confessional point of view, but so that our older people have support, so that IPSS continues to flourish and so that the most disadvantaged people sometimes have a word of love and comfort,” defended Augusto Santos Silva.
An independent commission for the study of sexual violence in the Catholic Church corroborated 512 testimonies, extrapolating to at least 4,815 victims. Twenty-five cases were sent to the State Department, which opened 15 investigations, nine of which were closed.
In a report released in February, the commission warned that data collected from church records on cases of sexual assault “should be understood as the ‘tip of the iceberg'” of the phenomenon.
The commission provided diocesan bishops with lists of alleged rapists, some of which are still active.
In recent days, several dioceses have announced the dismissal of priests, while investigations into alleged cases of abuse by them continue.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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