A Portuguese report published Monday estimated there have been close to 5,000 victims of clerical abuse of minors since 1950.

A report published Monday by the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse of Children in the Catholic Church in Portugal estimated there have been close to 5,000 victims of nearly 500 abusers in the local Church since 1950.

The commission began it’s work in January 2022, and surveyed the whole of the country’s Catholic institutions, dioceses and religious orders, producing a nearly 500-page report, the first of its kind in the majority Catholic country.

In response, Bishop José Ornelas of Leiria-Fátima, the president of the Portuguese bishops’ conference, said that the commission’s report had detailed an “open wound which hurts and shames us” and promised measures by the bishops to enforce zero-tolerance on abuse in the local Church.

The report concluded with several recommendations, including extending the civil…