Child abuse victims to protest outside Vatican

Victims of child abuse by priests will hold a demonstration outside the Vatican next month against the Catholic Church's role in the scandal, an Italian organisation said on Saturday.

Associations of US victims have been invited to take part in the October 31 protest, the group said in a report by Italian ANSA news agency.

"This will be an international protest and we will go in front of the Vatican to denounce once again these numerous (paedophiles) that shocked young victims and weren't known until now," Marco Lodo Rizzini, a spokesman of victims from the Antonio Provolo institute, was quoted as saying.

Sixty-seven deaf-mute children at the Catholic institute in the city of Verona were allegedly abused by priests and lay staff between the 1950s and 1980s.

"The hour has come for the truth to be known," Lodo Rizzini said.

In May the Italian Episcopal Conference said around 100 cases of child abuse by priests had gone through "canonical procedures" in the past 10 years.

The Catholic Church is grappling with its worst crisis in recent years since the publication in November 2009 of a report revealing serial abuse of children by priests in Ireland and a subsequent cover-up, with similar cases emerging in countries including Belgium and Germany.

SIC: AFP/EU