Portugal church sex abuse study: Victims may number 4,800

By BARRY HATTON
Associated Press

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — A committee looking into historic child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church says 512 alleged victims have come forward, but a report by the expert panel warned that the true number is likely higher than 4,800. Portuguese church officials had previously claimed that only a handful of cases had occurred. At the report’s presentation Monday, attended by senior Portuguese church figures who sat in the auditorium’s front row, members of the committee read out some of the harrowing accounts of alleged abuse it received from victims. The Independent Committee for the Study of Child Abuse in the Catholic Church, set up by Portuguese bishops just over a year ago, looked into alleged cases from 1950 onward.