VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 17, 2014 NCR Today
In spite of an earlier Vatican statement denying an Associated Press story that almost 400 priests had been defrocked for the sexual abuse of minors during 2011/2012, a bishop with knowledge of the statistics says the AP story was correct.
The Vatican spokesman also confirmed the AP story in response to an NCR inquiry.
Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, who served for 10 years as the Vatican’s top sex abuse prosecutor and who represented the Vatican during a Jan. 16 hearing of the U.N.’s Committee of the Rights of the Child, told NCR that in 2011 and 2012, 384 priests were either voluntarily dismissed from the clerical state or had laicization imposed as a penalty in cases related to sexual abuse.
Scicluna spoke to NCR Jan. 17 by phone.
Based on information provided in the published volume “Activity of the Holy See,” according to Scicluna, there were 135 priests in 2011 who voluntarily requested dismissal from the clerical state and 125 for whom laicization was imposed as a penalty.
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