The president of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP), José Ornelas, on Friday, presented Pope Francis with the work that the Portuguese Church has done to combat sexual abuse, with the pontiff recommending that it continue “in the same vein”.
In the audience that the Pope granted to the Portuguese bishops who today ended an “ad limina” visit to the Vatican, José Ornelas, according to the Ecclesia news agency, thanked the pontiff and the Holy See for their contribution in this area.
In February 2023, the CEP received a report from the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse of Children in the Roman Catholic Church in Portugal, which validated 512 testimonies out of a total of 564 received relating to cases that occurred between 1950 and 2022.
