VATICAN CITY
Inquirer (Philippines)
By Dario Thuburn
Agence France-Presse
11:20 am | Sunday, February 5th, 2012
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican’s top anti-abuse prosecutor has warned that the Catholic Church in Asia is falling behind in the fight against paedophilia due to cultural differences over what constitutes child abuse.
“The problem is very accentuated in Asia,” Archbishop Charles Scicluna told reporters ahead of a major international conference this week in the Vatican’s Gregorian University on the crisis of paedophilia in the Church.
Scicluna, who addressed an unprecedented closed-door meeting on the issue with Asian Church leaders in Bangkok in November last year, added: “There is an awareness that there is abuse and something needs to be done.”
The Vatican has asked national bishops’ conferences from around the world to submit by May their guidelines on how to deal with abusive priests and cooperate with local law enforcement in an effort to root out abuse.
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