Catholic Church launches global center against child abuse
The new international internet centre will be based in Germany .
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Catholic Church leaders have unveiled an Internet teaching project to help clergy root out pedophiles in their ranks and protect children from potential abusers.
The 1.60 million-dollar project would provide multilingual advice and access to research on pedophilia and how to respond to the problem, said Fr Francois-Xavier Dumortier on the concluding day of the conference on child abuse in Rome.
"It will help to develop a culture of listening...a different face to the culture of silence," said Dumortier, who is rector at the Pontifical Gregorian University where the conference was held.
An association for victims of abuse has dismissed the four-day conference as "window dressing".
The association said the Vatican should publish its documentation on abuse and hand it over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.
The symposium brought together some 200 people including bishops, leaders of religious orders, victims of abuse and psychologists, and some participants saw it as a turning point in the Church's approach to the crisis.
The Internet-based "Centre for Child Protection" will work with medical institutions and universities to develop what the Church hopes will be a constant response to the problems of sexual abuse.
It will be posted in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian and help bishops and other church workers put into place Vatican guidelines to protect children.
The message from Vatican officials who have addressed the symposium is that local Church officials must cooperate with civil authorities according to local law in cases of suspected pedophilia.
Source:Reuters
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