This Thursday, the Diocese of Porto announced that it had suspended three priests suspected of sexually abusing minors from pastoral work.
“As part of an internal investigation into the names on the list of suspects provided by the Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, the Bishop of Porto [Manuel Linda] decided to temporarily suspend three diocesan priests from their pastoral activities.
The decision comes after the Diocese of Porto announced last Friday that it had received a list of 12 suspects of sexual abuse of minors, seven of whom are active priests, promising to preemptively remove them from office if “credible evidence emerges.” crimes.
In addition to these seven active priests, four have died, and one no longer belongs to this diocese, he specified at the time.
“According to oral information from the Historical Investigation Group, it became known that the denunciations date back to the 1970s and 1980s,” he said.
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.
The testimonies relate to cases that took place between 1950 and 2022, that is, for the period covered by the work of the commission.
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.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal

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