There will be no independent commission on pedocrime in the Italian Catholic Church similar to that created by the French Church. The new president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), Matteo Zuppi, appointed Tuesday by Pope Francis, to whom he is close, announced on Friday May 27 the launch of a study on the sexual assault of children and people. vulnerable within the Catholic institution over the past twenty years.
But this study, which will be published on November 18, will be piloted by the bishops, “with the contribution of independent research institutes” chosen by them. Announced at the end of their annual meeting, this decision was deemed insufficient by groups of victims, who are calling for an in-depth and impartial investigation in one of the last Western countries not to have lifted the cloak of silence that hangs over this subject. .
The data taken into account for this study will come from the dioceses and from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican body to which sexual assaults committed by clerics are supposed to be traced. In other words, they will all be internal to the Church. On the other hand, a national report on prevention activities and on cases of sexual abuse received by the dioceses will in future be drawn up each year. “It is our duty in the face of so much suffering”, said Cardinal Matteo Zuppi during a press conference.
These announcements disappointed the victims’ associations. Francesco Zanardi, assaulted by a priest in his teens and founder of the main victims’ association, Rete L’Abuso, judged “discriminatory” to study only sexual violence committed after 2000. “This excludes many cases, including mine,” he argued.
“Not at the bottom of things”
On May 23, associations and personalities gathered in a Coordination against abuse in the Catholic Church – ItalyChurchToo – had asked the episcopate, in an open letter, “an independent investigation, carried out by credible professionals and great go ». They had rejected “in advance any working hypothesis carried out with tools and resources internal to the Church itself [qui] would be non-credible, deficient and ultimately useless, if not harmful”.
Questioned by AFP, one of the members of the coordination, the journalist Ludovica Eugenio, judged that the report on twenty years of abuse announced “will not solve the problems because it does not get to the bottom of things” and claimed “radical measures, no facade”.
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