The Attorney General’s Office of Porto has closed an investigation on suspicion of sexual abuse in the diocese of this district, the religious institution said this Saturday.
According to a statement posted on its website, the Diocese of Porto in March handed over to the regional Attorney General’s Office “a list with all the names of alleged perpetrators of abuse of minors or vulnerable adults, as received from the Independent Commission.” .
The diocese explains that the regional prosecutor’s office filed the case “in relation to each of the names mentioned there” in accordance with paragraph 2 of Article 277 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which determines that the investigation is archived. if the government ministry failed to obtain sufficient evidence to verify the crime or who its agents were.”
In a March 10 statement, the Diocese of Porto announced that it had received a list of 12 alleged rapists from the Independent Commission and forwarded it to the Ministry of Public Administration.
“Initially, it was possible to establish that four had already died, and one no longer belonged to the diocese. According to oral data from the Historical Investigation Group, it became known that the denunciations date back to the 70s and 80s, ”it says. in a note.
At that time, the religious institution announced that a “preliminary investigation into seven living clergymen” had immediately begun.
“In the diocesan archive there is no data on possible crimes of hooliganism, which, in fact, has already been verified by the Historical Investigation Group. The Diocesan Commission for the Care of the Infirm also received no complaints about these names,” he said. .
However, the investigation process has continued, the diocese said, adding that the diocesan bishop met “with several people, some of whom no longer reside in the area of the Diocese of Porto, in search of any further information.”
“However, these steps have not yet led to any leads. Should credible evidence emerge, the diocesan bishop will not hesitate to preemptively remove the clergyman in question,” the March statement reads.
In February of this year, the Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church announced the verification of 512 testimonies of alleged abuse in Portugal, extrapolating to at least 4,815 victims.
In the report, this commission warned that the data collected in church archives on cases of sexual abuse “should be understood as the ‘tip of the iceberg'” of the phenomenon.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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