BishopAccountability.org
	Italian Catholics Fume at Bloggers The Inquirer [Italy] May 21, 2007 http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39750 Italy's Leading Roman Catholic newspaper has slammed boggers for spreading 'slander' about priests sexually interfering with children. The Beeb ran a documentary in October about a church cover-up of sexual abuse but it was banned in Italy, where the church still has a fair bit of power. However, bloggers copied it and stuck it onto Google video and circulated it on the Internet. The video is numero uno in the Google video charts. Newspaper Avvenire, which is owned by the Italian Conference of Roman Catholic bishops, hit out at the web publication in a front-page editorial headlined "Infamous Slander Via Internet". Of course they got it completely wrong, since the documentary was published it would be 'defamation', not 'slander'. What has got them all upset was that the Beeb found a secret document written in 1962 that set out a procedure for dealing with child sexual abuse within the Church. It made the child victim, the priest and any witness swear an oath of secrecy, which smacks a little bit of attempting a cover-up. British Catholic bishops slammed the Beeb when the documentary was aired saying that it should be "ashamed of the standard of the journalism used to create this unwarranted attack on Pope Benedict". It seems that Mr Benedict was involved in policing the policy when he was in charge of the Inquisition and it was not changed until fairly recently. It is not clear what it was changed to, as the policy is still secret. In the US the church is having to flog buildings to pay for out of court settlements with sexual abuse victims.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.