ROME
Washington Post
By Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli January 16
The Vatican has continued to receive a high number of reports of sexual abuse by clerics during Pope Francis’s papacy, according to a new book that also reexamines allegations against several of the pontiff’s top advisers involving coverups or worse.
The book by Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi — an advance copy of which was provided to The Washington Post, and which is to be published Thursday — argues that little has changed in the way the church handles sexual abuse cases despite Francis’s creation of a special commission for the protection of minors and a declaration of “zero tolerance” of abuse.
The church “is still afraid of the taboo,” Fittipaldi said in an interview.
Francis has been credited by some with taking more decisive action on abuse cases than his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, did. Francis has set down a process for removing bishops for negligence in the handling of abuse cases and ordered the trial before a church tribunal of a Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic after accusations of sexual abuse surfaced. But Francis also has promoted officials who have been tainted by accusations of abuse or coverups, and the Vatican has been accused of still not doing enough.
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