Portuguese Catholic Church apologizes to at least 5,000 victims of abuse Hundreds of thousands on climate strike: funniest signs from yesterday’s protests

The Portuguese Catholic Church has apologized to the estimated at least 5,000 victims of child sexual abuse by church members. “We ask forgiveness from all the victims: those who gave their testimony courageously, kept silent for so many years, and those who still live with their pain in the depths of their hearts without sharing it with anyone”said the president of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference, D. José Ornelas, Friday evening in the central Portuguese city of Fátima.

The church was responding to a report by an independent commission of inquiry in mid-February, which cited 4,815 cases of sexual abuse confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt over the past 70 years. But there have likely been many more cases since the 1950s, the commission’s head, Pedro Strecht, said at the time.

Victim associations and Catholics criticized the statement. “It was a step backwards”, said Jorge Wemans, one of the signatories of an open letter from which the commission emerged, to the newspaper “Público”. There were no “concrete measures” on how to prevent abuse in the future and how to help the victims. There is also no “reflection on the exercise of power in the church and the profound clericalism” that allows abuse at all. In addition, the bishops had expressed their unease about the abuse cases, but lacked compassion, “Público” criticized in a commentary.

Lisete Fradique of the Portuguese branch of the Catholic reform movement “We Are Church” (Nós somos igreja) was “appalled” by the bishops’ plan to hold a memorial service for the World Youth Day of Catholics victims in Lisbon in early August. “It’s a huge pain,” she told the paper. Victims would have to go through it all again, she warned. (saw/sda/dpa)