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by Alice RITCHIE / Ella IDE Agence France Presse VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Ex-pope Benedict XVI asked for forgiveness Tuesday for clerical child sex abuse committed on his watch, but aides rejected allegations of a cover-up while he was archbishop of Munich. “I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness,” the 94-year-old said in a letter published by the […]
VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope Francis on Wednesday expressed his personal shame and that of the Church at the sexual abuse of children by French Catholic clergy, after the scale of the problem was laid bare in a devastating report. “I wish to express to the victims my sadness and pain for the trauma they have suffered,” he said during his weekly audience at the Vatican. “And also my shame, our shame, my shame […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — The Catholic Church has been repeatedly rocked by child sex abuse scandals over the last three decades. An independent inquiry on Tuesday found there were 216,000 victims of French clergy between 1950 and 2020. It is the latest in a series of landmark reports and investigations that have helped lift the “veil of silence” around the crimes. – Australia – After a series of scandals, Australia’s government set up a […]
by Karine PERRET and Joseph SCHMID Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — An independent inquiry into alleged sex abuse of minors by French Catholic priests, deacons and other clergy has found some 216,000 victims from 1950 to 2020, a “massive phenomenon” that was covered up for decades by a “veil of silence.” The landmark report, released Tuesday after two and a half years of investigations, follows widespread outrage over a string of sex […]
by Isabelle LE PAGE and Deborah COLE Agence France Presse BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — An independent study commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church released Thursday has uncovered hundreds of cases of sexual violence allegedly committed by clergy and laymen in Germany’s top diocese. The long-awaited 800-page report on the Cologne diocese found 202 alleged perpetrators of sexual assault and 314 victims between 1975 and 2018, Bjoern Gercke, a lawyer mandated by the Church, told […]
by Karine Perret Agence France Presse LOURDES, France (AFP) — French bishops on Saturday approved a program of payouts to victims of sex abuse by priests — but survivors have already objected that the Catholic Church has not gone far enough in admitting responsibility. Voting at the bi-annual Conference of French Bishops (CEF) in the southern city of Lourdes, a large majority of the 120 bishops approved the payments to those who had suffered […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — A commission set up by the French Catholic Church to investigate allegations of child sex abuse by clerics received about 2,000 messages in its first three months, chairman Jean-Marc Sauve said Friday. The independent body, looking into abuse claims dating back to the 1950s, was set up last year in response to a number of scandals that shook the Church in France and worldwide. Composed of 22 legal professionals, doctors, […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — A hit documentary about how some Catholic priests allegedly abused nuns in different parts of the world has been pulled from the Franco-German television channel Arte after a priest complained to a German court. The big-budget media investigation, “Sex Slaves in the Catholic Church”, was broadcast in March and has been sold widely internationally since. Its broadcast came weeks after Pope Francis admitted that some rogue priests had used nuns as […]
A leading cardinal has acknowledged the global scale of the child sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church amid the refusal by some bishops — notably in Asia and Africa — to admit clerical paedophilia was an issue in their countries. Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias told the extraordinary summit, on Friday, on the second day of a landmark summit at the Vatican on tackling paedophilia in the clergy, that the refusal by some […]
A top Catholic cardinal admitted Saturday that Catholic church files on priests accused of sexually abusing children were destroyed or never even drawn up in a move which allowed paedophiles to prey on others. “Files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created,” German Cardinal Reinhard Marx told a landmark Vatican summit on tackling paedophilia within the clergy. “Instead of the perpetrators, the victims were regulated […]
(Eagle News) – Manila Archbishop Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle admitted publicly in a world meeting of Catholic bishops on Thursday, February 21, in Vatican City on how priests had sexually abused children and minors, and stressed the need for all priests to “bring healing” to the wounds they had inflicted. Tagle was the first to give the formal talk in the meeting called by the Catholic Church’s Pope Francis to address the widespread abuse […]
Catholic Church’s Pope Francis will meet young student priests on Saturday on the fourth day of his visit to Panama for World Youth Day celebrations, a day after the clergy sex abuse scandal haunting his papacy returned to the spotlight. The 82-year-old Argentine pontiff had earlier acknowledged at a general audience in August that the scandals of abuse and cover-up by Church leaders has caused a decline in vocations to the priesthood in Ireland, […]
