VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

[Update: 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.]

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 17, 2014 NCR Today

In response to a story by The Associated Press asserting that Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests during 2011-2012 for the sexual abuse of minors, the Vatican released a statement Friday saying that the number in the AP story refers to the number of new cases opened during that span rather than the outcome of those cases.

The following is the full text of the statement from Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, in an NCR translation from Italian.

“Information diffused this evening by the Associated Press appears to be based…