Vatican Investigated 4,000 cases of child sex abuse in the last 10 years
A virus is a sickness, that left unchecked and ignored will eventually spread and take over your body, making you very ill and depending on how severe, kill you. Abuse is a virus that does the same destruction wherever it goes unnoticed and unchecked. Take for instance the revelation just out of the Vatican stating that, in 10 years time, it has investigated 4,000 cases of child sex abuse within it’s organization. Not only was the abuse ignored and or disbelieved, when proof was found, the abuser was simply removed from one spot and placed in another to continue the abuse somewhere entirely new. That’s akin to taking out a sick person’s organ to transplant into a healthy body. It only spreads the disease further and creates more sickness and helping no one heal. We can do better. The Catholic Church is learning that lesson in the hardest and most expensive way possible. The thousands of victims paid the biggest price of all. Help to stop abuse in your home and your community by becoming an AbuseStopper.
Become an AbuseStopper today by taking The Pledge. More important, become a member of the Stop Abuse Campaign. It’s quick, easy and it’s the right thing to do. Support the only organization in America with a mission and plan to stop ALL of abuse. Get involved and learn how. Make an effort to make a difference, because sooner or later, abuse touches us all.
Vatican Investigated 4,000 Cases of Child Sex Abuse in the Last 10 Years -By Nick Pisa
A senior Vatican cardinal has revealed how more than 4,000 cases of sex abuse by priests on children have been investigated during the last ten years.
Cardinal Joseph William Levada revealed the figues as he opened the conference on child sex abuse
The shock figure was announced by American cardinal Joseph William Levada as he opened a conference on the wide scale phenomenon which has rocked the Roman Catholic church with cases reported all over the world.
Cardinal Levada, who is head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, described the figure as a ‘dramatic increase’ and came in the face of global indignation at the scale of the problem and which has forced Pope Benedict XVI to apologise for previous cases during papal visits as he meets victims.
Addressing the conference in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University he also stressed that the Catholic Church had an obligation to report paedophile priests to the police and civil authorities – in the past there have been cases in Ireland and elsewhere that bishops ‘dragged their heels’ in naming offending clergy.
The event called ‘Towards Healing and Renewal’ is being attended by more than 100 senior bishops and clergy from all over the world – with Ireland’s leading Roman Catholic Cardinal Sean Brady among the delegates and it comes after Benedict ordered an Apostolic Visitation into the Irish Catholic Church following two damning reports on the extent of abuse there.”
Joelle Casteix, of support group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), said: ‘How many meetings will it take for Rome to learn that child sex abuse is a crime, predators must be made public and jailed and church officials who cover up molesters must be held accountable ?
‘Even after years of promises, meetings and empty apologies, the Vatican cannot do the simplest, cheapest, and the most child-friendly action possible: make public decades of secret files on clergy sex offenders and enablers.’
She also attacked Cardinal Levada and added: ‘Conference leaders say the purpose of the event is to create guidelines on how to handle reports of childhood sexual abuse.
