AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Jason Om
A key Catholic Church body says 4 per cent of priests in Australia have been paedophiles, double the number estimated by the Pope.
Pope Francis has reportedly described paedophile priests as a leprosy infecting the Church, saying the problem will be met with severity.
“It’s a no-nonsense, a zero-tolerance attitude,” Francis Sullivan from Australia’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, said of the Pontiff’s approach.
“He is probably ruffling feathers within the Vatican and good on him.”
In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Pope Francis said 2 per cent of clergy, including bishops and cardinals, were paedophiles.
That would equate to 8,000 of the 400,000 Catholic clergy worldwide.
In Australia, the Truth, Justice and Healing Council is compiling statistics on abusers for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
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