Pope Benedict XVI
Source: BBC
Close to 400 priests were defrocked in only two years by the former Pope Benedict XVI over claims of child abuse, the Vatican has confirmed.
The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase compared to previous years, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press (AP).
The file was part of Vatican data collected for a UN hearing on Thursday.
It was the first time the Holy See was publicly confronted over the sexual abuse of children by clergy.
Church officials at the hearing in Geneva faced a barrage of hard questions covering why they were withholding data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse.
Victims’ advocates complained there was still too little transparency.
Catholic Church abuse scandals
- Germany – A priest, named only as Andreas L, admitted in 2012 to 280 counts of sexual abuse involving three boys over a decade
- United States – Revelations about abuses in the 1990s by two Boston priests, Paul Shanley and John Geoghan, caused public outrage
- Belgium – The bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in April 2010 after admitting that he had sexually abused a boy for years
- Italy – The Catholic Church in Italy admitted in 2010 that about 100 cases of paedophile priests had been reported over 10 years
- Ireland – A report in 2009 found that sexual and psychological abuse was “endemic” in Catholic-run industrial schools and orphanages for most of the 20th century
‘Shame of the Church’
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi initially said the AP report had been based on a mistaken reading of data.
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