On February 13, the final report of the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church will be released.

In October, the commission had already validated testimony from 424 witnesses, but most had already expired in legal terms.

However, Pedro Strecht, President of the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church, says what they have is compelling: “The witness reports present a lot of identical information, a fact that reinforces the consistency of the testimonies and outlines serious situations existing over decades that become more evident the further you go back in time, and in some places, they assumed truly endemic proportions.”

“….taking the experience of other countries and what we are learning about reality, these figures will increase over the next few months”

Ricardo Barroso Psychologist and researcher

The initial figures presented by the commission came as no surprise to…