Nearly 4.400 people in Italy have been victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in cases reported since 2020, the victims' association Rete l'Abuso said, again increasing pressure on church authorities to confront a crisis that has rocked the world's largest Christian community for decades.
The unofficial number published by Rete l'Abuso, Italy's largest group of victims of church abuse, is based on testimonies from victims, court sources and media reports, said Francesco Zanardi, the association's founder.
The organization, Reuters reports, did not specify the period to which all the cases referred.
The Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI), which was criticized last week by the Vatican's Commission for the Protection of Children, has not commented on the findings of this report, a conference spokesman confirmed.
The Catholic Church has been rocked globally by scandals involving pedophilia among the clergy and a cover-up of those crimes for more than half a century, but church leaders in Italy have traditionally been much more reticent on the issue, according to Reuters.
Pope Leo XIV, who this Sunday received for the first time victims of clerical sexual abuse, told new bishops not to cover up allegations of misconduct. His predecessor, the late Pope Francis, also made the issue a priority during his 12-year pontificate, but with limited results.
In an unusually harsh report published on October 16, the Vatican Commission for the Protection of Children said that only 81 of 226 Italian dioceses responded to its questionnaire on measures to protect minors, Reuters reports.
According to Rete l'Abuso, 1.250 suspected cases of abuse have been documented, many involving multiple victims, of which 1.106 were allegedly committed by priests. The remaining cases are attributed to nuns, religious teachers, lay volunteers, educators and members of scout organizations.
The total number of victims involved, or, as the association calls them, "survivors," is 4.625, of whom 4.395 were abused by priests.
Of these, the report said, 4.451 victims were under the age of 18, and almost the same number, 4.108, were men. The victims included five nuns, 156 vulnerable adults and 11 people with disabilities.
Of a total of 1.106 suspected priests, only 76 were subjected to ecclesiastical trials.
Of these, 17 were temporarily suspended, 7 were transferred to other counties, 18 were dismissed from their duties or left the priesthood, while five priests committed suicide, according to the association.
Reuters writes that these data reopen the question of the responsibility of the Italian Church and the Vatican's willingness to implement real reforms in the child protection system, in a country where church institutions have traditionally had strong social and political influence.
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