The coordinator of a vanished independent commission looking into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church responded Tuesday to criticism from VITA Group about difficulties accessing the data, saying the data had been destroyed for privacy reasons.
“As the VITA Group itself is aware, and the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP) has been informed and agreed, our data have always been anonymous and subsequently destroyed by us to guarantee personal confidentiality, which we have always ensured from the very beginning of the study to each and every person who participated in this with his testimony,” explained pediatric psychiatrist Pedro Strecht to Luse.
According to Pedro Strecht, computer access to the database was “highly secure, sometimes changed, and no member of the independent commission ever had personal or exclusive access to it, either during or after the study, in strict compliance with international data protection rules of this type ” study”.
The VITA group said on Tuesday it was having difficulty accessing information about victims heard by the Independent Commission into Child Sexual Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church, which submitted its report in February 2023.
Rute Agulhas, coordinator of the VITA group created by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference and which began work in May 2023 with the aim of accompanying victims of sexual abuse in the context of the Catholic Church in Portugal, said today in Fátima that they have not yet received “any information from the Independent Commission.”
“Even before we started working (…) we took a number of steps and initiatives, and one of them was precisely a meeting of all of us [Grupo VITA] with all elements of the Independent Commission and emphasized the need to exchange information,” said Rute Agulhas at the presentation of the second report on the activities of the structure she heads.
The psychologist added that there were two victims who then contacted the VITA team and said, “I have already shared this with the Independent Panel and I give permission for this, I agree, and I will put this consent in writing so that the Independent Panel can share with VITA Group the information it has.”
“In one of these situations we received nothing, and in another situation we received a paragraph of information. It is clearly not enough that we need to collect,” he said, emphasizing that VITA Group does not know where this data is located, which “is not confidential data, which, strictly speaking, is the property of the Church, since it was the Church that commissioned this research.”
The Independent Commission into Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Portugal began collecting testimonies from victims on 11 January 2022, confirming 512 reports out of 564 received by the end of October that year, allowing the extrapolation of a minimum number of 4,815 victims since 1950.
Presenting its report on February 13, 2023, the group led by Pedro Strecht advocated the creation of a new “commission to continue the study and monitoring of this topic,” which would include members both internal and external to the Church.
In this context, the Bishops’ Conference created the VITA group.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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