Bishop João Marcos of Beja said the perpetrators of five cases of child abuse identified by an independent commission had already died, but said there were four more cases identified by diocesan archives, one of which was in progress.
In a statement published Wednesday on the Facebook page of the diocesan newspaper Notícias de Beja, which was seen by the Lusa agency this Thursday, the bishop indicated that there are four cases in the archives of the Diocese of Beja: convicted between 2001 and 2020.
“All of them, without exception, deserved a proper and mandatory direction, both civil law and canonical, with a normal and necessary course of investigation and proof,” he stressed.
According to João Marcos, the most recent case dates back to 2020 and “involves a layperson in priesthood training who was accused of sexual harassment.”
The said layman “was expelled from the seminar and the case was referred to the civil authorities and tried in the court of Beja, pending sentencing,” he said.
As for the other cases found in the diocesan archives, the first one dates from 2001 and “was made public and widely commented on in the newspapers of the time, as it involved a priest and a 17-year-old girl.”
“The process continued in Rome, and the verdict was his resignation from the clergy,” explained Joao Marcos.
Another case was connected with the accusation of the priest “that he persecuted a minor”, but in the end it was acquitted by the court.
Finally, the fourth case arose “out of an anonymous complaint which the Diocese of Beja received directly from the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith”. It was investigated by the judicial police “and subsequently archived for lack of evidence,” he said.
In the same statement, João Marcos also said that, with regard to the five alleged rapists, “four priests and a layman” on the list handed over to the Diocese of Beja on March 3 by the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church are all “a thing of the past.”
According to the prelate, the name “seems to be related to a situation that dates back to 1963” in the case of “a priest who lived in the city of Beja and left the diocese after the incident.”
The second name mentioned “refers to a situation that occurred in the second half of 1967-68, and is also related to the priest who was in charge of raising the children,” he added.
According to the Bishop of Beja, the third name “appears in a very vague situation”, saying “respect for a layman who served as a sexton in the city of Mura or in the parish of this municipality.”
“The fourth name also appears in a somewhat uncertain situation (…) in 1978 and is associated with a priest from Serpa or a parish in the same municipality,” he added.
As for the “fifth name, it refers to a situation that happened in the early 1980s in Mertola, and it refers to a priest who was there, but was not the parish priest of the village.”
“None of these situations appear in the archives of the diocese. [de Beja] or was somehow reported against him, and according to the report sent, we were unable to establish the facts and contours of the denunciations,” the bishop noted, considering this “generally impossible and ineffective.” take any investigative steps.
“However, we express our commitment, zeal and determination to provide the necessary support to any victim that we can identify,” he concluded.
An independent commission for the study of sexual violence in the Catholic Church corroborated 512 testimonies, extrapolating to at least 4,815 victims. In total, 25 cases were sent to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, 15 investigations were launched, nine of which are in the archive.
The testimonies relate to cases that took place between 1950 and 2022, that is, for the period covered by the work of the commission.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Sandra Hansen, a news website Author and Reporter for 24 News Reporters. I have over 7 years of experience in the journalism field, with an extensive background in politics and political science. My passion is to tell stories that are important to people around the globe and to engage readers with compelling content.