ITALY
ANSA
New book by Fittipaldi, Holy See gets over 400 cases per year
(ANSA) – Rome, January 18 – Despite a crackdown announced by Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, some 518 reports of ‘graviora delicta’ were made in 2015, “the vast majority of which involving sexual abuse of minors”, according to a document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic Church department that deals with priestly sex abuse. Sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, long covered up by ecclesiastical authorities, is the subject of Emiliano Fittipaldi’s new book ‘Lussuria’ (Lust), which will be in Italian bookshops from Thursday. The journalist, who went on trial and was acquitted for the ‘Vatileaks 2’ case and his previous book, ‘Avarizia’ (Avarice), has once again focused on the Vatican. ANSA has seen an advance copy of ‘Lussuria’, which recounts how the Vatican said that of the 587 cases opened in 2014 by its disciplinary office, over 500 involved the crimes of ‘the most dishonorable type’. In 2013, the first year of Pope Francis’s papacy, out of 522 complaints filed by dioceses and ecclesiastical institutes and bodies from “various parts of the world”, some 84.8% (443 cases) were ‘graviora delicta’, including “401 charges against priests with a child under 18 years old”, Monsignor Silvano Tomasi said in May 2014 at a Committee against Torture hearing that requested information on the issue.
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