SÃO PAULO, Brazil – A victim of sexual abuse by a priest over 50 years ago in April created Brazil’s first Network of Survivors of Ecclesiastical Abuse.

The South American country had at least 148 cases of children and teenagers abused by members of the clergy since 2000, according to a recent study, but the numbers could be much higher.

Valdea Caratchuk, a resident in Curitiba in Brazil’s Paraná state, rediscovered what happened to her only 11 years ago, during therapy, after decades hiding it under layers of fear and shame.

“I went back to the memories of my childhood and could perfectly see what the priest did to me 57 years ago at the parish,” she told Crux.

Her mother, a widow, made a living as a seamstress for the parish. Caratchuk, who was the youngest of four siblings, would take the pieces to the church, as her mother had undergone leg surgery.

“He would take me in his arms… That’s how it happened,” she recalled.

Caratchuk isn’t sure how many times she was abused. She knows the priest remained in her city for only two years and thinks other girls might have been equally attacked. But she can’t accuse the priest of anything now, because he died four years ago and a law forbids people to stain the memory of the deceased.

“The statute of limitations expired long ago. So, I have my hands tied when it comes to my own aggressor,” Caratchuk said.

Her mother, who died years ago, never knew what happened to her. She only told one of her sisters, who coincidentally had her marriage celebrated by that same priest.

For decades, the crime would haunt her. She developed a real repugnance for priests and ended up leaving the Church, becoming a Spiritist, a follower of the doctrine of French-born writer Allan Kardec, which has a large number of adherents in Brazil.

Caratchuk realized that healing depended on her talking about the crime, and she did so on a few occasions, at times to relatively large audiences, during events of coaching and mentoring.

At the end of last year, she watched the U.S.-Canadian documentary Sugarcane, about the Canadian Indian residential school system, tainted with abuse and other human rights violations.

“I was very impacted by the movie and decided it was about time to establish a group in Brazil for abuse survivors,” she explained.

She looked online for any help and discovered the book Pedofilia na Igreja (“Pedophilia in the Church”), published by journalists Fabio Gusmão and Giampaolo Morgado Braga in 2023.

The first study on child abuse in the ecclesiastical sphere in Brazil, the book showed that at least 148 children and teenagers were victimized by 108 clergy members since 2000. The authors, however, claim that the numbers could be much higher, given that there has been a long tradition of covering up cases in the country.

“When we were writing the book, we noticed the victims didn’t have any kind of support. Everybody focused on punishing the perpetrators, something of fundamental importance, but the victims were totally forsaken,” writer Braga told Crux.

After denouncing the abuse they suffered, most of them would lose their community – which in many cases sides with the aggressor – and even their families, which would put the crime in doubt.

“They would be impeded to rely on their own faith, which had been impacted by the abuser as well,” Braga said.

He and Gusmão accompanied the work of the groups of abuse survivors in the U.S. and European countries, and knew how important they were for the victims. When Caratchuk called Braga, he advised her to launch an initiative like that.

She soon discovered online the Argentine survivors’ network and got in touch with them. Since then, the group has been helping her to structure the Brazilian chapter of the network. Caratchuk has been taking part in their weekly encounters.

“I was surprised when I realized that all South American countries already had a network of Church abuse survivors, except for Brazil,” she said.

Her group is now formed by an activist who works for the protection of children and a lawyer. Caratchuk hopes that the network will soon grow, despite the difficulties imposed by the Brazilian reality.

“The media in Brazil is afraid to talk about clerical abuse, because it fears legal action from Church groups. But we have to go on,” she said.

In Braga’s opinion, the creation of a network of victims is fundamental.

“Those people need to receive support. They need psychological and legal advice. They need to see other victims and understand they’re not alone,” he told Crux.

Caratchuk said she hopes she can help some of those people.

“I’ve been training as a therapist in order to work with the victims,” she said.