Fatima (Portugal), March 3. The Portuguese Catholic Church will not separate the priests suspected of having sexually abused still active minors for the moment and will give the names to the dioceses so that they study the cases and act according to “civil and canonical norms”.
“We cannot remove someone from a ministry just because a person comes to say that he is an abuser,” the president of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP), José Ornelas, said today during a ‘a press conference in Fatima, after the assembly which brought together the bishops to study measures on the abuse of minors.
The bishops met to analyze the report prepared by the commission of experts which investigated 70 years of abuse, in which it estimates that there are at least 4,800 victims, and which presented this Friday to the CEP a list of about 100 active abuse suspects. EFE
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