![\"Portugal](\"https:\/\/c.ndtvimg.com\/2019-02\/8rvtn5vo_church-generic-istock_625x300_06_February_19.jpg\"\/ "\\"Portugal")
<\/div>\nPope Francis has yet to respond to this latest controversy surrounding the Church. (Representational)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Lisbon, Portugal: <\/b><\/p>\n
Catholic clergy in Portugal have abused nearly 5,000 children since 1950, an independent commission said on Monday after hearing hundreds of victims’ accounts.<\/p>\n
Thousands of reports of paedophilia within the Catholic Church have surfaced around the world and Pope Francis is under pressure to tackle the scandal.<\/p>\n
The Portuguese inquiry, commissioned by the Church in the staunchly Catholic country, published its findings after hearing from more than 500 victims last year.<\/p>\n
“This testimony allows us to establish a much larger network of victims, at least 4,815,” commission head Pedro Strecht told a press conference in Lisbon that was attended by several senior Church officials.<\/p>\n
Strecht, a child psychiatrist, said it would be difficult now for Portugal to ignore the existence of child sex abuse or the trauma it caused.<\/p>\n
“I am satisfied with this difficult and dramatic work,” said the head of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP), Bishop Jose Ornelas.<\/p>\n
“And we hope it marks a new beginning,” the bishop said after attending the report’s presentation.<\/p>\n
Monsignor Ornelas, who also expressed “a thought for the victims,” is due to hold a press conference later.<\/p>\n
The country’s bishops will convene in March to draw conclusions from the report and “rid the Church of this scourge as much as possible”, Father Manuel Barbosa, a senior CEP member, said in January.<\/p>\n
Faced with a multitude of clergy sex abuse cases that have come to light worldwide and the accusations of cover-ups, Pope Francis promised in 2019 to root out paedophilia within the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
Inquiries have been launched in several countries in addition to Portugal, including Australia, France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
The pontiff may meet some of the Portuguese victims when he visits Lisbon in August, the capital’s auxiliary bishop, Americo Aguiar, said recently.<\/p>\n
‘The Church needs to cleanse itself’<\/p>\n
The time limit for bringing charges has already expired for the vast majority of offences recorded by Strecht’s six-member commission but 25 cases have been transferred to the prosecution service.<\/p>\n
One of them concerns “Alexandra”, a 43-year-old woman who has requested anonymity. She alleges she was raped by a priest during confession when she was a 17-year-old novice nun.<\/p>\n
“It’s very hard to talk about these things in Portugal,” a country where 80 percent of people say they are Catholic, said Alexandra, who is now a mother and works as a kitchen helper.<\/p>\n
“I kept it secret for many years but it became more and more difficult to cope with it alone,” she told AFP in a telephone interview last week.<\/p>\n
Three years ago, she plucked up the courage to report her attacker to the Church authorities.<\/p>\n
But she said she was “ignored”. The bishop in charge did nothing other than pass on her complaint to the Vatican, which has still not responded.<\/p>\n
In April last year, Manuel Clemente, the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon and the highest-ranking prelate in Portugal, said he was ready to “recognise the errors of the past” and ask the victims for “forgiveness”.<\/p>\n
“Bishops asking forgiveness doesn’t mean anything to me. We don’t know if they mean it,” retorted Alexandra, who said she felt “sickened” by the Church and its abuse cover-ups.<\/p>\n
The independent commission, at least, had afforded her an understanding ear and psychological support.<\/p>\n
It was, she said, “a good first step” for victims who wanted to “break the wall of silence” that had surrounded them.<\/p>\n
“This has taken far too long,” Strecht quoted another anonymous victim as saying. “The Church needs to cleanse itself.”<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n
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