The BBC has uncovered how a culture of complicity and denial conceals the true scale of clerical sex abuse in Italy. One shocking case that we delved into exposes how abusers in the Church can escape justice. This account contains descriptions which readers may find upsetting. We’ll call him “Mario”. He pulls back slightly as […]
Read MoreVATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Nine members of a defunct, cult-like Roman Catholic religious order in Italy’s Tuscany region are under investigation for alleged sexual abuse of two brothers when they were minors, authorities said on Wednesday. The nine, including five priests and three other men, were members of a religious order called the Disciples of […]
Read MoreItalian activists fighting sexual abuse by Catholic clergy decry the ‘conspiracy of silence’ between the Italian church and state. VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Recent reports on the clerical sexual abuse scandals in France and Germany have put the spotlight once again on the Catholic Church in Italy, which has so far avoided confronting the history of abusive priests in […]
Read MoreROME — Catholic groups and abuse survivors on Tuesday called on the Roman Catholic Church in Italy, which has yet to reckon with the scourge of sexual abuse by priests, to create an independent commission to investigate how the crisis has been handled. In a number of countries — including Australia, France, Ireland and the […]
Read MoreSister Veronica Openibo says leaders must accept they have brought disgrace upon church A nun has condemned the Catholic church’s hierarchy for its failure to tackle the scourge of clerical sexual abuse, saying leaders must concede that their “mediocrity, hypocrisy and complacency” has brought the church to a “disgraceful place”. In her speech, delivered at […]
Read MoreVatican under pressure to show it is serious about dealing with crisis at Rome meeting More than 100 senior Roman Catholic bishops from around the world will gather in Rome this week for a summit Pope Francis has called to address clerical sexual abuse – the most serious crisis in the church since the Reformation, according to […]
Read MoreSpokesman says guidelines for those who break celibacy vows will not be made public The Vatican has acknowledged for the first time the existence of secret guidelines for priests who break their vows of celibacy and father children. However, it declined to make its advice public, saying it was an internal matter. Alessandro Gisotti, a Vatican spokesman, told […]
Read MorePope Francis hands out 21 ‘reflection points’ at Vatican summit but survivors groups say church still has a long way to go Activists for survivors of clerical sexual abuse have criticised a list of proposals laid out by Pope Francis to address paedophilia within the Catholic church on the first day of an unprecedented summit at the […]
Read MorePope yet to implement crucial reforms to canon law one year on from summit The Vatican has done little to seriously address the problem of clerical sexual abuse one year on from an unprecedented summit at which bishops and cardinals heard the testimony of victims, activists have said. Pope Francis closed the four-day summit last February promising that the […]
Read MoreUnofficial estimates say country may have highest number of victims of paedophile priests in world Pressure is mounting on the Catholic church in Italy to face a reckoning on child sexual abuse amid unofficial estimates that the country could have the highest number of victims of paedophile priests in the world. Damning investigations into the scale of […]
Read More