A sex abuse study in the Portuguese Catholic Church has uncovered a potential 4,800 individuals who were victims of child molestation by priests and other church officials since the 1950s.
Findings of the Independent Committee for the Study of Child Abuse in the Catholic Church, which was formed by bishops last year and consists of psychiatrists, a former Supreme Court judge, and a social worker, contradict previous claims by senior Portuguese church officials who said only a handful of cases had occurred.
Five-hundred-and-twelve alleged victims have come forward so far, but the actual number may be closer to 4,800, the panel said Monday.
At the meeting, panelists read aloud victims' accounts of abuse in their final report while senior clergymen sat in the front row and listened.
The 500-page report was developed in the last year, but the Vatican did not grant access to church archives until October. The panel had just three months to go through written evidence of abuse.
However, the statute of limitations has expired for most of the cases, and only 25 of the allegations were passed to prosecutors for review, according to the panel.
Bishop José Ornelas, the head of the Portuguese Bishops Conference, said church authorities would review the report before giving an official response.
According to the report, 77% of the abusers were priests, with other perpetrators linked to church institutions. Additionally, 77% of victims didn't report the abuse to church officials and just 4% went to the police. Most of the abuse took place when the victims were in early adolescence and the majority were male.
This report comes after other countries have uncovered major sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church in the past decades, such as Ireland, Australia, and the United States.
