Vatican ignored abuse of deaf children – student

The sexual abuse of vulnerable children was brought to the attention of the Vatican but elicited no response from the Pope, it was claimed yesterday.

Father Nicola Corradi, 83, an Italian priest, is accused of being the ringleader of a group of clerics who preyed on deaf children at Catholic schools in Italy and Argentina. He is to go on trial in Argentina next month.

The Washington Post said church officials up to and including the Pope were warned repeatedly and directly about a group of alleged predators that included Corradi, but took no action. It published a harrowing account two days before a church conference on sexual abuse of children.

‘‘I want Pope Francis to come here. I want him to explain how this happened, how they knew this and did nothing,’’ a former student of the Provolo Institute told the paper, using sign language. The woman, 24, and her brother, 22, are among at least 14 former students who say they were abused at the Argentine boarding school, which has now closed.

‘‘Vulnerable to the extreme, the deaf students tended to come from poor families that fervently believed in the sanctity of the church,’’ the newspaper said. ‘‘Prosecutors say the children were fondled, raped, sometimes tied up and, in one instance, forced to wear a diaper to hide the bleeding. All the while, their limited ability to communicate complicated their ability to tell others what was happening to them.’’

‘‘The church failed them abysmally. The Pope ignored them,’’ Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of bishopaccountability.org, a site that tracks abuse in the church, said.

Barrett Doyle said she was not confident that the three-day Vatican conference, involving 190 church leaders from around the globe, would come up with an effective plan to deal with a problem that had severely damaged the standing of the church. – The Times