ITALY
The Independent (United Kingdom)
Michael Day
Milan
Saturday 24 March 2012
An Italian man who suffered what he claims was clerical sex abuse as a 14-year-old has secretly recorded his attacker, now a senior Sicilian church figure, appearing to admit the crimes in a chilling case that throws the spotlight on the wider issue of clerical paedophilia in Italy, which many observers say is still being swept under the carpet.
The victim, Teodoro Pulvirenti, 37, now a medical researcher in the US, decided to return to his home town of Acireale in Sicily and confront the alleged abuser, Don Carlo Chiarenza, who is now a Monsignor. Last September, armed with a hidden microphone, he taped the conversation in which the priest is heard admitting to having had a sexual relationship with the-then adolescent, who subsequently made several suicide attempts and had years of psychotherapy.
With Mr Pulvirenti breaking down in tears half-way through the conversation, Mr Chiarenza is said to have claimed that the “intimate sexual relationship” – in Mr Pulvirenti’s words – that took place between them was a way of Mr Chiarenza “telling [Mr Pulvirenti] that I cared for you very much”. He then appears to suggest that the adolescent was to blame for initiating some of the encounters.
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