Bishops head to Vatican’s first sex abuse summit

Pope Francis gathers bishops from around the world at the Vatican this week for a hotly awaited summit on tackling the wave of child sex abuse scandals assailing the Catholic Church.

The heads of around 100 bishops’ conferences from every continent will convene from Thursday

to Sunday for the meeting, with victims’ groups demanding that - ing pedophilia be drawn up.

The Pope, who asked the bishops to speak to victims of abuse in their respective countries before the Rome convention,

The conference aims to be an opportunity to improve awareness of the global phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors within the Church, despite many in Africa, Asia and the Middle East being in denial of what they call

In many parts of the world, discussing violence towards children and even sex is taboo, leading the Vatican to orga gathering.

Some abuse victims, particularly from countries where their plight is ignored, have also been invited to attend.

“Someone who has met a victim, heard their cries for help, their tears, their psychological and physical wounds, German Jesuit priest Hans Zollner, a psychologist who travels the world educating priests and is one of the conference’s organizers.

“The Catholic Church has been faced with this problem hailing rigorous preventative measures taken in Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland and the United States.

“It works: the number of new accusations of sexual assault in all these countries is now mini

The aim was for the heads of the world’s episcopal conferences to achieve “a feeling of Father Federico Lombardi, who will be leading debates during the conference.

“The credibility of the Church

‘A decisive moment’

The summit comes after Pope Francis defrocked a former cardinal, Washington’s Theodore McCarrick, over accusations he sexually abused a teenager 50 years ago.

McCarrick, 88, who resigned from the Vatican’s College of Cardinals in July, is the first cardinal ever to be defrocked for sex abuse.

Chilean Vatican expert Luis Badilla said the meeting would be a “decisive moment for the

“We want this meeting to said, echoing victims’ hopes for the conference, being held in the wake of pedophile scandals that have shaken the Church particularly in Chile and in the United States.

The summit’s title, concern

That reflected the Church’s centuries-old instinct to protect its image, he said. But added, “the only way to emerge from the

In France, prosecutors said Friday they were investigating a sexual assault complaint made against the Vatican’s envoy to Paris, 74-year-old Luigi Ventura.

He was accused of molesting Agence France-Presse.

The Pope has already warned those hoping the four- day meet would be a panacea that “the problem of abuse will

“By resolving the problem within the Church, through becoming aware, we will contribute to resolving it within society, within families, where the shame means everything is

The meeting will come up with “protocols for moving bishops don’t know what

Father Zollner is also wary of people hoping for a magic wand the problem simply disappear.

Bishops must “change their rules or guidelines, he said.

The scale of the problem is impossible to measure statistically.

A study in the United States said that between 3 and 4 percent of the clergy were involved in abuse before 2002, when stricter guidelines were published, said Zollner.

While the Catholic Church says it is trying to address the problem, other churches are also affected.

In the United States, the Protestant Southern Baptist Convention has been hit by a wide-ranging sex abuse scandal involving almost 400 pastors, volunteers and teachers over two decades. to