The independent commission estimates that at least 4,815 minors have suffered abuse since 1950 in the Portuguese Church

EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and has an updated

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The first act of public atonement by the Portuguese Church for the cases of pedophilia committed within it took place this morning in Lisbon.

In the first row of the auditorium of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the leadership of the Episcopal Conference, headed by its president, Bishop José Ornelas, heard a succession of figures and testimonies that prove the hells experienced by many Portuguese.

At least 4,815 minors were abused in institutions or activities linked to the Catholic Church between 1950 and 2022. The figure is an estimate by the independent commission that has investigated pedophilia based on the 512 testimonies collected over a year.

And it is, reiterated its president, the psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, a minimalist calculation of what reality will have been.

The data listed makes it possible to draw a map of the sexual abuse suffered in one of the European countries with the most entrenched Catholicism for decades.

And there are some differences with respect to what happened in other European countries where the phenomenon has already been studied: the profile of the abusers and the date of the abuse.

Strecht drew attention to both: 77% of abusers were clergy and a quarter of assaults occurred in the last three decades.

“The average age of the Portuguese victims is 52, the lowest of the European countries where there is data,” he pointed out.

This singularity with respect to France, Germany or Ireland is in the role of the Portuguese seminaries as an educational outlet.

“Many cases occur in seminaries where poor families sent their children to study,

The mean age at the start of the abuse was 11.2 years and the number of boys is slightly higher than that of girls.

Only 25 cases were sent to the Prosecutor's Office on the grounds that the crime had not prescribed.

Strecht highlighted the impact of trauma on victims.

Some had not talked about what they suffered until now.

The commission delivered its report to the leadership of the Episcopal Conference one day before its public presentation.

At that meeting, Bishop José Ornelas announced that an extraordinary assembly would be held in March to discuss the document and decide "what is best to do justice."

The independent commission was created in November 2021 by decision of the Episcopal Conference.

And although it has not had the same reception from all the bishops, it has carried out its work without interference, which was one of the conditions demanded by its president Pedro Strecht to carry out the study.

The commission also accessed secret information from the diocesan archives, which were opened after an express authorization from the Vatican, sent in mid-2022.

In France, the commission that investigated pedophilia estimated that some 216,000 minors suffered some type of religious abuse since 1950. The figure increased to 330,000 if laymen were added to those employed in institutions and activities of the Catholic Church.

The maximum compensation that each victim will receive is 60,000 euros, higher than those established in Germany (50,000 euros) and Belgium (25,000), although far from the compensation negotiated in the United States.

In Spain, the bishops commissioned an external audit a year ago from the Cremades & Clavo-Sotelo law firm to find out the reality of this problem.

For years, they refused to do so, alluding that in the Spanish Church they were isolated cases.

So far, sources from the law firm affirm that they have only interviewed a little over a hundred victims.

There is still no specific date for the publication of its results, but they estimate it to be before this June.

On the other hand, the Congress of Deputies entrusted the Ombudsman with an investigation on the subject last March.

Ángel Gabilondo, head of the entity, launched two teams of specialists to collect testimonies, which already exceed 400. However, he has not qualified whether a demographic study will be carried out as was done in France, essential to know the scope they had these crimes in the past.

In the absence of official data, EL PAÍS created a database that is periodically updated with the cases that have already come to light, either through sentences or in the media.

In total, at the moment there are 910 defendants and 1,741 victims.

EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church in 2018 and has an updated

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