Italy church abuse study slammed for 'unsatisfactory' scope

The Italian Catholic Church released its first accounting of clergy sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable individuals on Thursday.

The 41-page report found 89 presumed victims and accused 68 people, but only covered the years 2020 and 2021. A second report going back to 2000 has been promised, but it remains unclear when it will be released. 

Most victims were between the ages of 15-18 when the abuse took place, the report stated.

Sixteen of the victims were adults that the church considered as "vulnerable." The claims involved inappropriate language, behavior and touching. 

In the course of the press conference, senior church officials revealed they are researching 613 sexual abuse cases that have been filed with the Vatican since the year 2000.

The report presented on Thursday was criticized for only covering two years and not including research into the Vatican archives.

Survivors slam report as 'shameful'

Victims claim that the report was never meant to provide an accurate or historical look at the clergy abuse problem in Italy, as the bishops have not authorized such research.

They are now demanding a full accounting with a thorough outside investigation going back many decades, which Catholic Churches in France and Germany published.

The data in the report comes from so-called listening centers in dioceses, but only includes information from victims who came forward. Half of the alleged cases were recent, but the report did not specify in which time period the other half occurred. 

The numbers of the report pale to the count of Italy's main survivor's group, Rete L'Abuso, which estimates around 1 million victims in Italy.

Head of Rete l'Abuso, Francesco Zanardi, called the report "absolutely unsatisfactory and shameful." 

"It was already shameful that the [second study] would cover only cases from 2000 onwards," he told Reuters news agency. 

However, the report at least hinted at the scope of the problem. "If in two years they received 89 complaints, that means the problem is there and it's big,'' he added.

Zanardi remarked that an unusually high number of those accused were laymen employed by the church. He suggested that these laymen had opportunities to find victims through Italy's widespread volunteer programs and that background checks on them were not as strict. 

los/fb (AFP, AP, Reuters)