2023-05-01 02:20:16
The president of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP) says that the Church “is not above the law” and that, if victims of sexual abuse file lawsuits that lead to the payment of compensation, the law will be followed. “Compensation is a legal term, compensation is achieved through a legal process. If someone puts a lawsuit, they will follow the law. The law says that those who are responsible for an evil committed are the people who committed it. Now what we say is that no one will be left without help for what is just and for his life”, says José Ornelas, in a joint interview with the Lusa agency and the Ecclesia agency.
“What we are going to do is provide help. And that’s why we don’t [a questão] in legal terms. If it is in legal terms, it is clear that there will be a process and it is clear that we are not above the law”, explained the prelate, adding that “people who have been abused in a Church environment, or by people of the Church, have and will get the help they need.”
For José Ornelas, the action of the Catholic Church in Portugal in the field of sexual abuse, with the creation of the Independent Commission, whose work was presented on February 13, with the diocesan commissions and, now, with the VITA Group, “is an initiative which was deemed absolutely necessary in the times in which we live, in order to allow us to know the reality in which we live and concretely in the Church”.
“Our perspective was to know, to better intervene. (…) I said from the beginning: worse than what can be known is not [se] know what we have”, says the bishop of Leiria-Fátima, convinced that, with the Independent Commission, “a very significant step” was taken towards this knowledge, “because it was done by competent people, people who had the capacity to do so, which they planned very well, be it the composition of the team, be it the methodology followed. And it also made it possible to organize and articulate all this technical effort with the reality of the dioceses, specifically, not only with the search for possible cases of abuse, but also with recourse to the diocesan archives”.
As for the figures presented by the commission led by child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht on February 13 – 512 validated complaints out of the 564 received, leading to an extrapolation to the existence of a minimum number of 4,815 victims in the last 72 years -, José Ornelas is peremptory: “I cannot say … whether they are many or few. I just know that anyone is a drama”.
Regarding the criticism of the Independent Commission’s report, including by some members of the Church, the bishop says he can “understand the discomfort of people who say: well, why did the Church take the initiative to uncover this box of Pandora?”, but speaks out against this idea.
“The truth is more significant and more important, especially when we want to act on reality (…). Moreover, it was important, particularly because we are dealing with people, people who have suffered very serious injustices. And going to meet these people could only be like this”, underlines the president of the CEP, explaining that the creation of the Independent Commission when the diocesan commissions already existed was due to the need to “break the ice”, allowing the victims to approach. According to José Ornelas, “people said: I wouldn’t like to speak before a committee where my neighbor is”.
“This does not take anything away from the competence of these people [que integram as comissões diocesanas de proteção de menores]. (…) But, for this phase, it was very important, to break this ice, that we had someone outside to guarantee anonymity” and that this first phase took place in an environment of “discretion in relation to the victims”.
Addressing the controversy that arose with the inclusion of names of alleged abusers who have already died in the lists delivered by the Independent Commission to the dioceses, the leader of the CEP guarantees that “it was not due to negligence, nor for lack of attention that they appear there. [A inclusão de] most of these people already deceased [nas listas] has to do with the fact that the victims are alive and therefore [foram incluídas] for the sake of justice towards these people.”
As for the VITA Group, presented on Wednesday, coordinated by forensic psychologist Rute Agulhas, José Ornelas assures that “it is not the continuation of the Independent Commission (…), because this was a study commission and, therefore, it was a totally independent commission ”.
Joao Carlos Santos
“Now, this is part of the operational process that follows the conclusions of the study, the report made, the recommendations and what we ourselves have seen with the process that the Church is doing”, he says.
“We have entered into an operative process, and this group will have a very significant part of intervention, in the next two to three years”, which involves “preparing the Church to be attentive, to welcome eventual cases that are happening, to treat them properly, to go to the meeting these people [vítimas] and others who come from the past. But also, and above all, preparing types of prevention, training people, especially those who are in contact with children”, explains the president of the Episcopal Conference.
The objective is also to “set up a system that stays in the church” for the follow-up of these cases, with the option of going in the direction of “a preferably secular and competent organization”.
Confronted with the issue of the hole that abuse cases have caused in the credibility of the Catholic Church in Portugal, José Ornelas says he is unaware of it, taking into account the much “smoke” that there was “in the media”, considering that “there was also a lot of misinformation in the of it all”.
However, “these cases existed and we didn’t close our eyes, we didn’t look the other way and we have to improve our system. It is not that the Church is [uma instituição] that there are more abusers than other situations… Now, it is doubly serious”, he recognizes.
“And I’m not worried about the scandal, I’m worried that there have been such cases. That’s what worries me. Credibility comes from there. It’s not about making yourself known, it’s about existing and, now, having the courage to call things by their name and to act. It’s not a lack of credibility. When I can say ‘I made a mistake’, that doesn’t take away my credibility”, says José Ornelas.
“The worst thing would be for me to make a mistake and continue, to defend myself, to cover it up or, simply, to hide it”, emphasizes the president of the CEP, re-elected for a second term this April.
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