Details

"The objective of the Commission’s work was defined as the study of child sexual abuse by members of the Church and/or those who worked with it, between 1950 and 2022, with a view to obtaining a better understanding of the past and of what action is best suited to action and preventing abuse in the future." (Executive Summary no. 3)

The Process

Fundamental to the process was placing the survivor at the centre of the study and to focus on their unique testimony. For this purpose, the Commission used a questionnaire survey and made available a telephone line to collect testimonies, based on which it arranged face-to-face interviews.

The information collected was subject to extensive statistical analysis to describe the abuse in several different dimensions.

There were no case studies of particular institutions.

Governing Authority
Commissioned by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP)

Public Hearings
There were no public hearings.

Private Sessions

A telephone service, operating to October 2022, was set up to collect contacts and witness statements. A total of 365 calls were recorded, with 51 requesting in-person interviews. Of these, 34 (23 men and 11 women) were direct victims of abuse. Where victims resided outside continental Portugal, interviews were held online.

Current leaders of the Church (bishops and superiors general) were also interviewed.

Written Submissions
An online questionnaire was completed by 564, of which 512 were validated.

Research

An exploratory study of the Church's historic archives covering 1950 to 2022 was undertaken by the Commission's Historical Research Group (GIH), involving 21 dioceses and 127 religious institutes. The archives were made available only in October 2022, limiting the archival research to a preliminary stage.

"The data on the incidence of sexual abuse uncovered in the ecclesiastical archives must be seen as the “tip of the iceberg”: it was thoroughly demonstrated that an indeterminate number of victims did not report the abuse to the Catholic Church; many of the complaints were dealt with informally, leaving no document trail; there is a strong degree of probability that files may have been purged without following the rules laid down by Canon Law (a conviction shared by many clergymen contacted). To this must be added the ambiguity surrounding much of the twentieth-century church correspondence." (Executive Summary no. 15)

Gender
Males represent 57.2% of cases, females 42.2% for females.

Institutions
The Portuguese Catholic Church

Findings

The Commission found that the 512 direct victims in this study point to at least another 4,300 and to many thousands of instances of abuse. Over time and space we have found a notable diversity of contexts in which abuse occurred. The Commission has uncovered the tips of various icebergs of these occurrences, at various moments and institutional contexts in times past.

The sample recorded all types of abuse, most frequently the most invasive, with clear patterns of distribution according to time, place, victim and abuser profiles. It is stressed that there was systemic concealment, both by the abusers themselves and those above them in the hierarchy who had knowledge of their acts, and that many of the known abusers are still practising in the Church.

Also noted was the importance of the media "in disseminating the appeal to giving a voice to the silenced" and raising awareness members of the Church.

Recommendations

Suggestions and recommendations made by the Commission are listed in §34 of the Executive Summary:

The Church:

• A new multidisciplinary Commission to continue the study and monitor the problem
• Recognition by the Church of the existence and extent of the problem and a commitment to appropriate measures to prevent it in the future.
• Observance of the “zero tolerance” concept proposed by the Pope
• A moral duty on the part of the Church to denounce cases of alleged crimes of sexual abuse and to collaborate with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in such cases.
• Effective requests for forgiveness of situations which occurred in the past and putting them into practice.
• Ongoing external training and supervision of members of the Church, with specific reference to sexuality (their own and that of children and adolescents).
• Ceasing religious practice and meeting in closed, individual physical locations.
• Effective preventive measures including "best practice manuals" and provision of "support and locales for victims and family members to testify, and corresponding follow-up"
• Ongoing psychological help for past, present and future victims (as a responsibility of the Church and in coordination with the National Health Service).

Civil society:

• A national study to be carried out on child sexual abuse in the various locations where they are socialised.
• Unequivocal recognition of the Rights of the Child.
• Empowerment of children and families in relation to the role of the school.
• Adjusting the statute of limitations by increasing the upper age limit of the child victim
• Speed in the courts’ assessment and response.
• Strengthening the role of the media in investigating and dealing with the problem
• Improving emotional literacy in connection with the true development needs of children and young people, especially in the realm of love and sex.

Commissioners

• Lucio, Alvaro L
• Nunes de Almeida, Ana
• Sampaio, Daniel
• Tavares, Filipa
• Vasconcelos, Catarina

Publications

Final Reports

• Comissão Independente para o Estudo dos Abusos Sexuais de Crianças na Igreja Católica Portuguesa, Dar voz ao silêncio. Relatório Final, Lisboa, February 2023. Also available at https://darvozaosilencio.org. Details
• Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church, Giving silence a voice. Final Report Executive Summary, Lisbon, February 2023. Also available at https://darvozaosilencio.org. Details