At least 4,815 minors have been sexually abused by members of the Catholic clergy in Portugal since 1950, according to an independent commission that presented its conclusions on Monday after collecting more than 500 testimonies in a year.

“These testimonies allow us to reach a much wider network of victims, estimated at a minimum number of 4,815 victims,” ​​said the coordinator of this commission of experts, child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, at the presentation of his final report in Lisbon.

“It is not possible to quantify the total number of crimes”admitted Strecht, who denounced him “most victims have been abused more than once” according to the conclusions of the investigation conducted by the commission into the abuses that have occurred in the Church over the last 70 years in Portugal.

The vast majority of reported cases have already been prescribed, but 25 testimonies have been forwarded to the prosecutor, Strecht said. The investigation was commissioned in 2021 by the Church of Portugal, a country with a deep-rooted Catholic tradition.

The facts reported reveal “serious situations that lasted for decadeswhich become all the more evident the further one goes back in time and which, in some places they have acquired truly endemic proportions“, concluded the team of researchers in October, during an initial assessment of the testimonies collected up to that moment

THE most of the abusers were men (96%) and priests -about 70%-. and the abuses that took place in seminaries, reception centers, schools or sports institutions.

the average of The age of the victims was just over 11 years. and now most of them are around 52 years old. Most were children and withdrew from the Church. By area, crimes were recorded throughout the country, with particular incidence in Lisbon, Porto and Braga.

“The testimonies are emotionally very intense” and should serve to conclude “a long night of silence, shame, fear and guilt,” said Strecht during the presentation of the report.

At the end of the day, the President of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference, Monsignor José Ornelas, bishop of Leiria-Fátima, will issue a statement.

The Portuguese bishops will meet in early March to draw conclusions from the report and “eradicate as far as possible this scourge from the life of the Church”as declared in January by the secretary of the Episcopal Conference, Father Manuel Barbosa.

In April 2022, the cardinal-patriarch of Lisbon and highest prelate of the Portuguese Church, Manuel Clemente, declared himself willing to “acknowledge past mistakes” and “ask for forgiveness” from victims.

Clemente was present this Monday during the presentation of the report this Monday.

He Pope Francis will travel to Portugal in August for world youth days could meet victimsrecently indicated the auxiliary archbishop of Lisbon, Américo Aguiar.

In 2019, the Argentine pontiff promised to fight pedophilia within the Church, after thousands of cases of abuse committed by members of the clergy came to light.

Several countries have published reports to shed light on the phenomenon, including France, Ireland, Germany, Australia or the Netherlands.