Italy’s Catholic bishops have provided their first-ever accounting of clergy sexual abuse.
FILE - Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the new head of the Italian bishops conference, arrives for a press conference in Rome, Friday, May 27, 2022. Italys Catholic bishops on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022 provided their first-ever accounting of clergy sexual abuse, but Italy's main survivor advocate said it was shamefully inadequate given it only covered reports to church authorities over the last two years and omitted documentary research into church archives.
The Vatican in 2001 required dioceses around the world to send all their credible reports of abuse to the dicastery for processing. The Vatican had felt compelled to act after decades in which bishops and religious superiors moved predator priests around from diocese to diocese rather than punishing them or reporting them to police.
The report said 89 people had made reports in the past two years and identified 68 abusers. It found most victims were between ages 15-18 when the abuse took place, though 16 were adults whom the church considered “vulnerable.” Most of the claims involved inappropriate language or behavior and touching.
“If in two years they received 89 complaints, that means the problem is there and it’s big,” he said in a telephone interview. “These are just a few, but they’re a lot,” especially for a system to receive complaints that had just been started, Ghizzoni said.
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