Vatican, Vatican Child Sex Abuse | featured news

The Vatican on Saturday vigorously rejected claims it sabotaged efforts by Irish bishops to report priests who sexually abused children to police and accused the Irish prime minister of making an “unfounded” attack against the Holy See. The Vatican issued a lengthy response to the Irish government following Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s unprecedented July 20 denunciation of the Vatican’s handling of abuse, in which he cited the “dysfunction, the disconnection, the elitism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.”

The Vatican said on Tuesday it would prove it cannot be held legally responsible for the actions of a priest at the center of a sexual abuse scandal in the United States.

The Vatican on Monday will make its most detailed argument yet for why it is not liable for bishops who allowed priests to molest children in the U.S., The Associated Press has learned.

A crowd estimated by the Vatican at 150,000 filled St. Peter's Square on Sunday in a major show of support for Pope Benedict XVI over the clerical sex abuse scandal.