VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (UK)
By Nick Squires, Rome 7:07PM GMT 05 Dec 2013
Pope Francis set up a special task force to tackle sex abuse by Catholic priests on Thursday — two days after the Vatican rebuffed requests to provide information to the United Nations on how it was addressing the problem.
The Vatican said the Pope had decided to establish a “specific commission for the protection of minors” on the advice of a group of eight cardinals, whom the Jesuit pontiff has given the task of helping him to reform the Catholic Church.
The new commission would “advise Pope Francis on the Holy See’s commitment to the protection of children and in pastoral care for victims of abuse”, but the move was condemned as “meaningless” by victims’ groups.
The initiative — the first concrete action against the scandal of paedophile Catholic priests of Pope Francis’s nine-month-old papacy – was announced by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and one of the eight members of the council of cardinals.
The sex abuse scandals, which have severely tarnished the image of the Church around the world and shaken the faith of ordinary Catholics in countries from Ireland to Australia, first erupted in Boston more than a decade ago.
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