#ItalyChurchToo: Abuse survivors demand Italy church inquiry

Advocates for victims of sex abuse by Italian clergy have launched a campaign to demand an national inquiry

ROME -- Advocates for victims of sex abuse by Italian clergy launched a campaign Tuesday to demand a cover-up inquiry, lamenting that deference showed the Catholic Church hierarchy in Italy has conditioned everything from criminal prosecutions to media coverage of the problem.

A consortium of groups said they hoped recent national inquiries in Germany and France, and planned ones in Spain and Portugal, would pressure the Italian Catholic Church to open its archives to independent investigators to ascertain the scope of the problem, assign responsibility to the perpetrators and bring restitution to the victims.

But they acknowledged the context is far more complicated in Italy than in other European countries given the outsized political, economic and social weight the church carries in the pope’s backyard.

The church's influence has resulted in a reluctance by prosecutors to investigate clergy abuse cases, a refusal by lawmakers to back parliamentary inquiries and disinterest by the Italian public, organizers of the #ItalyChurchToo campaign said.