Stephan: I thought, and maybe you did to, that the seemingly endless reports about the pedophilia problem in the Roman Catholic Church had been handled, and they had taken the needed measures to clean their house. But no, that is not the case. In Italy, Spain, France, and several Latin American countries a whole new wave of accounts concerning the sexual molestation of children has surfaced. There is clearly a systemic problem in that church, having to do with the structure of their priesthood and their celibacy practice, that the Roman curia simply has been unwilling to face effectively, in spite of having to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties. There are literally thousands of new cases surfacing worldwide. What amazes me is how relatively low key Roman Catholic congregants around the world have been about this.
Pope Francis during his weekly general audience. ‘The only way for an inquiry to happen would be if Francis orders it,’ says journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi. Credit: Vatican Media/ANSA/Zuma Press/Rex/Shutterstock
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 sexual abuse and cover-up allegations have dealt a severe blow to the church’s reputation in the US, Ireland, Chile, France and, more recently, Germany. But in Italy the issue has been mostly buried.
A group of religious and lay associations have now come together to push for an independent inquiry and to urge the Italian state to enact tougher laws to bring paedophile priests to justice and come up with a plan to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy. The group is using the hashtag #ItalyChurchToo and will outline its objectives during an online event on 15 February.
