Group VITA receives 48 complaints about sexual abuse within Portuguese Catholic Church

Group VITA, the independent structure set up in the wake of the Independent Commission into child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church in Portugal, is reported to have received 48 complaints in its first three months of existence. Of those 48 victims, 30 have given their informed consent for Group VITA to proceed with the information to competent authorities for further canonical and civil proceedings, and around 20 are to receive the psychological and psychiatric support Group VITA is empowered to provide. As the president of the Independent Commission warned back in February, the numbers gathered by the commission do indeed look as if they were ‘just the tip of the iceberg’.