Feb 8.Vatican Conference re: 4000 abuse cases

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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0208/1224311464123.html

THE HOLY See’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has had to deal with more than 4,000 cases of sexual abuse of minors in the past decade, according to its prefect, US Cardinal William Levada.

He was speaking at a symposium in Rome, “Towards Healing and Renewal”, which opened yesterday.

Cardinal Levada told the symposium, being held over three days in the Pontifical Gregorian University, that the number of cases of sexual abuse of minors reported to the CDF in the past decade had revealed, on the one hand, the inadequacy of “an exclusively canonical response to this tragedy and, on the other, the necessity of a truly multifaceted response ...”

The Catholic Communications Office said bishops and congregational leaders have “apologised publicly and privately to survivors [...] and to all in civil and religious society outraged and let down by the Catholic Church’s failure of moral leadership and accountability”.

Abuse victims in the Dublin diocese have also been paid €9.3million in compensation settlements, with the Church paying out an additional €4.2million in legal costs for both sides, the statement said.

It added that €20million has been spent on the Towards Healing service to the end of 2011, and bishops had also paid for other counselling services.

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I was surprised to see this quoted in the news item:"In Rome, where until recently it was not uncommon to hear senior Vatican figures dismiss the clerical sex abuse crisis as “an Anglo-Saxon problem”,

When this whole scandal started to come to light a few years ago, it was on a British documentary that showed that some priests accused in Western Countries, were moved/re-located to Central and South AmericanCountries, where it was revealed that the abuse went on, thereby perpetuating the problems there - out of Anglo-Saxon territories. Why did they do this - exacerbating a global problem - rather than de-frock and report the perpetrators? Was the theme of the documentary.