Victims call Italy Church's abuse report 'shamefully' limited
Italy's Catholic Church on Thursday released its first report on alleged sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable individuals but victims' advocates said the number of cases was likely much higher and denounced its limited scope as shameful.
The 41-page report, the first of two, covers only 2020-21. A second, promised report will cover abuse going back to 2000, although it is not clear when that will be released.
The report on 2020-21, which covers cases reported during those years but not necessarily taking place in that time, was done by a Catholic university in northern Italy. It said 89 people presumably had been abused by 68 alleged abusers, including priests as well as lay people such as church workers and religion teachers.
"It was already shameful that the (second study) would cover only cases from 2000 onwards," he told Reuters from his home in northern Italy.
Still, Zanardi said the report's numbers were significantly higher than he expected.
"If these numbers are correct, they are already high, but the real numbers are higher," he said. Extrapolating on statistics in the report, the number of victims in the last 22 years would be at least 2,000, he said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/vic...022-11-17/
Italy's Catholic Church on Thursday released its first report on alleged sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable individuals but victims' advocates said the number of cases was likely much higher and denounced its limited scope as shameful.
The 41-page report, the first of two, covers only 2020-21. A second, promised report will cover abuse going back to 2000, although it is not clear when that will be released.
The report on 2020-21, which covers cases reported during those years but not necessarily taking place in that time, was done by a Catholic university in northern Italy. It said 89 people presumably had been abused by 68 alleged abusers, including priests as well as lay people such as church workers and religion teachers.
"It was already shameful that the (second study) would cover only cases from 2000 onwards," he told Reuters from his home in northern Italy.
Still, Zanardi said the report's numbers were significantly higher than he expected.
"If these numbers are correct, they are already high, but the real numbers are higher," he said. Extrapolating on statistics in the report, the number of victims in the last 22 years would be at least 2,000, he said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/vic...022-11-17/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
