“we are all sinners, we are all limited, we all have flaws. This approach is not very Catholic. In the Catholic Church there is forgiveness”, defend D. João Marcos in an exclusive interview with SIC.
The Bishop of Beja argues that the way people look at the sexual abuse scandal in the Church has not been very Catholic and recalls the value of charity and forgiveness. In exclusive interview with SIC, in the First Journal, D. João Marcos suggests that if the suspected priests are repentant, must be forgiven.
“we are all sinners, we are all limited, we all have flaws. This approach is not very Catholic. In the Catholic Church there is forgiveness”, begins by referring to the bishop of Beja.
The denunciations of sexual abuse in the Church in Portugal were made public in February, after the work of the Independent Commission. D's reaction. João Marcos joins other controversial positions in the hierarchy of the Portuguese Catholic Church.
“Forgiveness is a new birth. If people are really sorry for what they did and did penance and repaired the evil they did. If there is this new birth, that forgiveness offers us, this is important, we can't devalue it”, defends the bishop of Beja, in statements to SIC.
Asked whether to go to court or just forgiveness is enough, the bishop of Beja responds: “Justice is like the structure, how safe, that gives firmness, to this building that is charity, what is forgiveness, what is the mercy”.
The Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, a 13 Feb., as conclusions of the work carried out during 2022 and which resulted in the collection of hundreds of testimonies from victims. The document was later delivered to the Portuguese Episcopal Conference.
In the first report of its kind published in Portugal, admitted that there will have been “not least” 4.415 victims of sexual abuse in the Church.
News: News handler/ SIC
