“It’s very important” to know if there are similar crimes in the Church in Portugal
Francisco Louçã argues that “it is very important to understand” if there were practices in Portugal similar to those mentioned in the report released this week, which reveals that more than 300,000 minors were abused by the French Catholic Church for 70 years.
In the usual comment space on SIC Notícias on Fridays, the founder of the Left Block criticized the “cloak of silence” of the Portuguese bishops and argued that these “ignored that it is in their first interest to make sure that there are no similar crimes” in the Church in Portugal “or that the crimes that occurred are investigated and punished as well”.
“The Portuguese Church, in this context, remains particularly silent”, pointed. “We can admit that in Portugal nothing like what happened in France has happened, but it is doubtful that this is the case.”
For the commentator, it is “very important” to find out if there have been cases of systematic abuse in Portugal “because it is a question of questioning, it is a question of justice, it is a question of respect and it is a question of protecting the institution itself because the Church promotes an idea , a faith … And if in the shadow of this practice there is a continued crime, it is a destruction of its nature “, he defended.
Francisco Louçã also considers that “there is an obvious relationship” between a condition of celibacy and the concealment of these crimes.
“This is a problem for the Catholic Church, it is impossible and hypocritical to continue to pretend that there is no relationship between the nature of this sexual violence and the false conditions of celibacy of priests,” he defended.
Still, for the commentator, “it is very important that Pope Francis had the courage” to force the “revelation to underline the protection of the victims”.
Prepared by an independent commission and shown last Tuesday in Paris, the report estimated that more than 300,000 minors were abused and assaulted in French Catholic Church institutions, directly blaming clerics and religious for 216,000 deaths between 1950 and 2020.
According to the document, around 216,000 children or teenagers were abused or sexually assaulted by Catholic clerics or religious.
The number of victims rises to 330,000 when considered “lay aggressors who work in institutions of the Catholic Church”, namely in chaplaincies, teachers in Catholic schools or in youth movements.
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